Clegg labelled ‘hypocrite’ over Facebook role
SIR Nick Clegg was yesterday accused of hypocrisy after taking a senior post with Facebook, the firm he has criticised in the past for not paying enough tax.
The former deputy prime minister will earn more than £1 million a year as the company’s head of global affairs.
He accepted the position after “months of wooing” by Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook’s chief executive.
Sir Nick said yesterday that he would immediately give up his role campaigning for a second Brexit referendum, admitting there was a limit to how much people from the “political past” like him could influence the debate.
He will be paid to lobby in Europe and the US on behalf of Facebook, which is facing investigations over its tax affairs and data breaches.
Sir Nick was previously a prominent critic of Facebook, which paid only £7.4million in tax in the UK last year despite recording £1.3billion in sales.
He said two years ago: “I’m not especially bedazzled by Facebook. I actually find the messianic Californian newworldly touchy-feely culture of Facebook a little grating. Nor am I sure that companies such as Facebook really pay all the tax they could – though that’s as much the fault of governments who still haven’t got their tax act together.”
The former Liberal Democrat leader’s new job surprised senior members of his party. Sir Vince Cable, the party’s current leader, said he would write to Sir Nick “urging him to make sure Facebook cooperates with attempts to make sure they pay their fair share of tax”.
Nigel Evans, a Tory MP, said: “This is deeply hypocritical. He has been critical about companies that try to reduce their tax and he is now running to the door of Mark Zuckerber. Quite frankly, we all know he has the ability to say one thing and do another. He’s now their champion. Pass the sick bag.”
Sir Nick, who lost his Sheffield Hallam seat to Labour last year, will start working for Facebook on Monday and move with his family to Palo Alto in California in the New Year.
Miriam Gonzalez Durántez, his wife, will give up her work as a lawyer. The couple have three children aged 16, 14 and nine. Antonio, their eldest son, is now in remission from Hodgkin lymphoma and has told Sir Nick he thinks life in California will be “cool”.
Facebook first approached Sir Nick in the summer but he turned down the offer. Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s chief operating officer, then called him while he was on a walking holiday in the Alps to make a new approach.
He later met Mr Zuckerberg before he and his wife travelled to California for dinner with the Facebook founder and Ms Sandberg.
Sir Nick told the BBC: “I said to them, if you’re prepared to let me into the inner circle, in the black box, and give me real authority, then I’m interested.”
Sir Nick Clegg risks looking like a hypocrite. For years he banged the drum for curtailing the freedom of the British press: Sir Nick backed Section 40 of the Crime and Courts Act, 2013, a flagrant attempt to discourage newspapers that would not sign up to the state regulator by lumping them with the court costs of both sides even if they win a case, which was mercifully never activated. Has he now forgotten his war with 2the media? Will he now turn his face against limits on free expression, in the service of his new employer? For suddenly it is announced that he has signed up to become Facebook’s chief lobbyist – and what is Facebook most worried about? Regulation. Regulation, at that, from the EU – an organisation that Sir Nick has said is wonderful and that he wants Britain to remain a member of even though it voted to leave. He has spent the past couple of years doing his upmost to reverse Brexit.
Sir Nick has pulled off an almighty U-turn to work in sunny Silicon Valley. Not only does this critic of the press now put himself on the side of a global social media giant, but one that makes money by allowing users to share news content. There’s more: Sir Nick has in the past mocked Facebook for its “touchy-feely culture” and attacked it for tax avoidance. Presumably, as head of global lobbying he will now be doing his best to promote that ethic and keep the tax man from the door? If so, this won’t be the first time that Britons are left wondering what precisely Sir Nick does stand for. It’s hard to forget him saying “sorry” for his reversal on tuition fees in government, which was set to music online.
Even Sir Nick’s Remain sympathisers might conclude that he has vacated the field of battle just when they need all the firepower they can get to fight Brexit. His critics will say that this is precisely what turns so many off politics altogether – the cosiness of insiders, elites employing other elites – and reflect upon the irony that it is Sir Nick, who really rose to prominence offering a break from politics-as-usual back in 2010, who is at the centre of this story.
As for Facebook, what does it say about the company that it has decided to hire such a partisan insider at the precise moment it is facing growing criticism on everything from data privacy to political bias? The appointment was meant to boost PR, but it may lead many users to conclude that Facebook is out of touch.