He was once the deputy prime minister but then Sir Nick Clegg led the Lib Dems into the political wilderness at the 2015 General Election before losing his Commons seat two years later.
Fortune smiled on him when he moved to Silicon Valley as the PR chief for tech billionaire and Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg and picked up a salary package north of £10million.
Now he’s back in Britain – and on the public-speaking circuit. Except the public don’t seem willing to listen to him. Media company Intelligence Squared has billed him as being ‘at the heart of power for two decades’ at an event next month at the 900-seat-capacity Union Chapel in Islington, north London.
Nick Clegg during his tenure as Metas global affairs president in 2022
Such is the woeful response that they’ve cut ticket prices by 69 per cent and seats are still available. How the mighty fall.
Keir hits the right note
Is former flautist Sir Keir Starmer delivering a rebuke to disharmonious colleagues when he tells Classic FM? ‘As everybody who’s ever done music will know you’ve got to work in a team. You have to play your notes or your instrument at the right time. Got to have eye contact. Those are skills which go way beyond music.’
The PM chose Beethoven Piano Concerto No.5, 2nd movement as his favourite piece of music because it’s ‘what my wife [Victoria] walked down the aisle to. Before your wedding day, everyone says it’s going to be the best day of your life. And you think, well I’m not sure, what about when Arsenal won the double?’ Sensing trouble at home, Starmer stressed: ‘A fantastic memory of what was a brilliant day. Better than the double, I’ll add, just for when Vic listens in to this.’
Former Sun editor David Dinsmore is the new Whitehall communications chief. He never came cheap. The Cabinet Office paid external recruitment consultants alone a whopping £46,000 for finding him. Did no one have Dinsmore’s email or phone number?
The US vice-president JD Vance and his wife Usha are staying in a sprawling £8,000-a-week Cotswolds mansion near Jeremy Clarkson’s celebrated TV farm. It’s owned by Johnny and Pippa Hornby who are close friends of David Cameron, the former Tory leader and foreign secretary. Hornby has a business manufacturing electrical components in China and US trade tariffs will be a subject close to his heart. Did Cameron have a hand in the VP’s domestic arrangement?
Seemingly unashamed of Thames Water’s appalling record of raw sewage discharge into rivers, Commander Richard Aylard, a key adviser to the company’s chief executive, writes on Linkedin: ‘After 21 years in leadership roles with Thames Water, including 15 years as a member of the Executive Leadership Team, I now work on short-term projects and in advisory roles.’
No mention by the way of his time with the then Prince Charles when he was sacked as private secretary after advising the heir to the throne to admit to adultery in a TV documentary with Jonathan Dimbleby.
Lisa gets a loser badge
It wasn’t that long ago Culture Secretary Lisa Nandy seemed to be headed for the exit door. And last week, as she announced £88 million worth of investment into youth clubs, she admitted she’d encountered failure before – as young as a Brownie.
She told LBC’s Nick Ferrari: ‘I was a disaster at Brownies. I went there three years – and I only got one badge. That’s how bad I was.
‘It was the Hostess Badge – and I failed it three times. They made you peel carrots and potatoes and I just couldn’t get the hang of it and I couldn’t see the point of it.
‘Eventually they felt sorry for me, so they just gave me the badge anyway. Not my finest hour.’
