Boy, this stinks. What a slippery hypocrite
EXIT Sir Cleggy to be a PR man in the land of all that chlorine-washed chicken he so bemoans. Yesterday’s news of his move to America to become head of global affairs for Facebook was almost comical in its ripeness. Gleaming Mr Liberalism is off to earn a greenback fortune with one of the most cynical forces in capitalism.
After initial laughter at the caricature greediness, two immediate thoughts: is Facebook really sure it wants to be represented by such a slippery hypocrite? And what about Clegg’s British political allies, who may be feeling distinctly sore at his Yankee volte-face?
Former deputy prime ministers used to retire to the Lords (Howe, Prescott, Whitelaw), an Oxbridge Mastership (Rab Butler), writing (Herbert Morrison), or to their Oxfordshire arboretum to snap twigs and gnash teeth in bitter regret (Heseltine). Only two (Attlee and Eden) went on to become PM. None, until now, was crass enough to become a US corporation’s seven-figure floosie.
Facebook has hired him for his EU contacts – he was once a Brussels official and an MEP. A few months ago, half-Dutch Sir Nick, a hard-core Remainer, travelled to Brussels to help the European Commission plot against Brexit.
We are entitled now to ask: did he go for high-minded political reasons or to schmooze for career purposes?
The Eurocrats who are so grateful to him for helping to dilute Brexit will now be the very officials he will be courting for Facebook. Social media firms face regulatory hurdles in Europe. Clegg has just monetised the anti-Brexit brownie points he had built up with Jean-Claude Juncker & Co.
Boy, this stinks. But then so does much of Clegg’s time in politics. He used to pose as the foe of tax-avoiding multinationals and their big-shot bosses. Now he is joining their ranks.
For years, he cultivated a reputation as an earnest politician, concerned about the vulnerable. Now he is going to be top lobbyist for a firm so deaf to decency that when British police investigating a schoolgirl’s murder asked to look at a suspect’s Facebook activity, they were given no help. The company says it was restricted from doing so under US law.
Clegg, as an MP, wanted oppressive regulatory checks on newspapers. His new employer is a direct competitor of those newspapers. But Facebook is markedly less responsible about its editorial content than even the most vulgar of our red-tops. No British newspaper has been used by jihadis to publish recruitment content. Facebook has. Clegg used to style himself a democrat. How does that square with claims that Facebook has been used by the Kremlin to help rig elections in Europe and America? As for Facebook’s tax-avoidance record (all of it completely legal, we are assured), just think how many students’ fees – the fees Clegg introduced, after saying he wouldn’t – could have been subsidised by the Government if social media firms had only coughed up more in corporate duties.
Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg looks like a laid-back California dude, but he is a ruthless billionaire whose business swaggers round the world, treating national governments like pawns. Zuckerberg is one of those Silicon Valley smoothies whose image fooled the Cameron/Clegg/Osborne government. Don’t let’s deter the Ubers and Facebooks and Googles by pursuing them with big tax bills, went the word.
Clegg, as a member of the ‘quad’ which ran the Coalition, was right in the cockpit when social media giants were cut all that slack. Now, kerching-kerching, Clegg is off to join them. In California, his feistily Iberian wife will not want for domestic help. She and Nick will be joining the seriously rich.
WHAT are Lib Dem members to make of this Californian flit? Many of the party’s rank and file are decent, civic-minded folk who care deeply about standards in public and corporate life. Many of them will have volunteered for the party for years, knocking on doors to argue for localism and accountability. Now their hero Clegg is off to stuff his pockets with glib, amoral Facebook.
A word of advice to Mr Zuckerberg: watch your back. Sir Nick has form for duplicity. As well as that appalling U-turn on college fees (which saw the Lib Dems massacred at the 2015 election), there was also his churlish refusal to agree to parliamentary boundary changes, another issue the Lib Dems had long supported because it would make constituencies more equal in size.
Clegg changed his mind in a bad-tempered pique because some Tory backbench MPs had opposed his House of Lords reforms. Oh yes, and he once enthused about giving the British people a vote on Europe. When it happened, and his pro-EU side lost, he was furious.
Ever since, he has been saying he did not want Britain to become globalised and Americanised – even while he was in discussions to join Facebook.
So farewell to the cocky, calculating Clegg, booted out of Parliament by the voters last time around, and now taking a running jump into a swimming pool full of dollar bills. Brexit Britain will be the better without him.