Tory clone? Stop pulling my Clegg

NEW Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg gets understandably irritated when people compare him to his Conservative counterpart, David Cameron.

The two men are both in their 40s, went to public school and may now find themselves trying to appeal to the same sections of the electorate. But, so far as Clegg is concerned, there the similarities end.

He rejects suggestions he is on the right in Lib Dem terms and dismisses claims he is a Cameron clone.

"I can't change the fact we are roughly the same age," he said, visiting Scotland during the leadership campaign.

"But I'm someone who was galvanised into becoming active in politics precisely because I was so appalled by the Thatcherite view of society, this dismal soulless vision that there's no such thing as society. What did Cameron do? He spent all his time as an apparatchik in the Thatcherite Conservative Party. We are very different politicians indeed."

After his narrow victory this week – Clegg saw off rival Chris Huhne by 20,988 votes to 20,477 – the new leader told cheering supporters the Conservatives and Labour were "mutating into each other" and it was a time of "unprecedented opportunity" for the Lib Dems.

The party has not had a brilliant showing in the opinion polls recently, with ratings of 12 per cent in October and 16 per cent for the past two months.

And the new leader does not have much of a public profile. The leadership contest only made it into the headlines when he and Huhne had a spat on live TV.

But Clegg has set himself ambitious goals. "I think we can establish three-party politics and end two-party politics at Westminster for good within two elections," he said.

"We've grown to 64 MPs in a relatively short space of time and I see no reason why we shouldn't be more than doubling that in the next two elections as a minimum.

"If we are that big, two-party politics is finished because neither other party can then govern on their own and all sorts of things might then happen."

However, both Clegg and Huhne were reluctant during the leadership campaign to follow this through to any discussion of how the Lib Dems would approach any possible coalition with Labour or the Tories and what their price for such a deal might be.

Liberals have often talked about breakthroughs before. The false dawns stretch back to the 1962 Orpington by-election when the party took the seat with a 26 per cent swing from the Tories. And the Gang of Four's breakaway from Labour in 1981 to form the Social Democratic Party – later to merge with the Liberals – was supposed to "break the mould" of British politics.

So is Clegg's vision of a major shift in British politics any more realistic?

"There is a generational change going on," he claimed. "I don't think my generation considers that every issue has just two options or that it's all about right-left, Tory-Labour. I think people want more choice. What's happened in Scottish politics bears that out."

He argues both major UK parties have deep-seated problems, quite apart from the Government's recent troubles. He describes Labour as "a hollowed-out political movement". "It has forgotten what it's in politics for. It has become a machine that's only interested in maintaining power."

And he claims Cameron does not represent the real Conservative Party. "It feels phoney. If there's one thing British voters are really good at sensing in their politicians it's when they're not authentic.

"I think that's Cameron's real Achilles' heel and I intend to exploit it – that he's fake, that he's saying what people want to hear from him. I think, come the general election, people will find that quite unattractive."

Despite claims he is on the right, the issue with which Clegg has been most closely linked so far has been opposition to ID cards.

And during the leadership campaign he said he would refuse to give his private details to "an unaccountable database somewhere in London".

It's a position that leaves him open to the jibe that lawmakers should not be law breakers.

"I've been condemned in the House of Commons by (Home Secretary) Jacqui Smith but I think that's actually what people want from their politicians," he said. "They want to see what makes us tick, what makes us passionate."

Clegg is the third leader of the Lib Dems in two years. And the way his two predecessors were forced out did not reflect well on the party. So how long will Clegg last?

"My ambition is to lead the party so that we break the tired old grip of two-party Westminster politics within two elections," he said. So he's giving himself two elections? "At least".