CLEGGMANIA!

Remember in 2010 when 10 million Brits watched the first ever televised leader debate, and we collectively lost our minds? 

We ponder the moment of madness that was ‘Cleggmania’, and the associated phrases ‘Cleggstacy’ and political fandoms ‘Milifans/ Milibaes’. What was it about Nick Clegg, the leader of the Liberal Democrats, a formerly stuffy party that no one could even get excited enough to hate, that drove everybody wild? What was behind the national hallucination that he ‘wasn’t like the others’? And why were people taken in by his neat haircut and near-identical class background to Tory leader David Cameron? Little did we know he was destined for a life even greater than politics (working for Meta). 

In a rare three-object episode, we follow the trajectory of Westminster’s former golden boy Nick Clegg; from students sporting home-made yellow ‘I agree with Nick’ t-shirts at flash-mobs, to royal marriage-style mugs commemorating the union of Nick and ‘call me Dave’ Cameron in the Coalition government, to finally, inevitably, Clegg’s transition from ‘the UK’s Obama’ to his lucrative multi-million pound life after politics. There is lots to read about Nick Clegg and the Coalition years, but this LSE blog by Katy Parry and Kay Richardson was especially thought provoking.

This episode turned out way more ranty than we intended it to, sorry about that! 

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