The little party behind the throne

摘要

Ntick clegg has endured diverse insults during his two years as deputy prime minister. But the latest slur, carrying a suggestion of physical cowardice, is new. Mr Clegg was asked on a radio show what he would have done to defend a celebrity chef, Nigella Lawson, who had been snapped by a paparazzo being manhandled by her husband in a restaurant. He replied that, without knowing what had really transpired, he could not say. That was reasonable; for Mr Clegg's opponents it was evidence of the spinelessness of which the Liberal Democrat leader is often accused. Ed Miliband, leader of the Labour Party and not a natural vigilante, declared that unlike the feeble Lib Dem he would have intervened in Ms Lawson's defence.