Nick Clegg
Sir Nick Clegg served as Deputy Prime Minister in Britain’s first post-war coalition government from 2010 to 2015. He was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2007 to 2015. Sir Nick now works as President for Global Affairs at Facebook owner Meta.
As Deputy Prime Minister, Sir Nick occupied the second highest office in the country at a time when the United Kingdom was recovering from a deep recession following the banking crisis of 2008, and hugely controversial decisions were made in an effort to restore stability to the public finances.
His insight into the most senior levels of UK government, combined with an integral understanding and experience of European politics, contacts at the highest levels of government across the EU, and fluency in five European languages, mean that his views and analysis on the current government’s foreign relations continue to be in high demand.
Career
In the early 1990’s Sir Nick worked in government relations and as a Financial Times journalist before joining the European Commission in 1994 working in the aid programme to the former Soviet Union before becoming policy advisor and speechwriter to European Commission Vice-President Sir Leon Brittan.
Entering electoral politics in 1999 Sir Nick became an MEP for the East Midlands followed by victory in the 2005 general election to become MP for Sheffield Hallam, a seat he held until 2017.
After serving in a number of Liberal Democrat frontbench roles Sir Nick was elected leader of the Liberal Democrats in 2007 and was appointed to the Privy Council in 2008.
Sir Nick led his party in the 2010 general election and took part in the first live TV party leaders debates which became synonymous with the phrase ‘I agree with Nick’.
After the election resulted in a hung parliament, negotiations led to the formation of a Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government with Sir Nick appointed Deputy Prime Minister.
The 2015 general election saw the Liberal Democrats removed from government and Sir Nick resign his party’s leadership. He continued as MP for Sheffield Hallam until the 2017 election.
After leaving front line politics, Sir Nick moved to the United States when he was appointed by Mark Zuckerberg as Vice-President for Global Affairs and Communications of Facebook in 2018. In February 2022, he was promoted to President for Global Affairs at Meta Platforms, the parent company of Facebook, Instagram and WhatsApp.
Books
Published in 2016, Politics: Between the Extremes is a frank account of Sir Nick’s success in the 2010 election through to cataclysmic defeat in 2015 and the consequences of an increasingly divided public discourse.
Divided public debate and its consequences were central to the theme of Sir Nick’s next book How to Stop Brexit which argued, during the withdrawal negotiations in 2017, that leaving the EU would be deeply damaging to the UK and was being led by a cabal of the self-serving elite.
In 2019 Sir Nick joined former Prime Minister John Major to explore the health of UK democracy in their book The Responsibilities of Democracy.
Sir Nick has also contributed to a large number of pamphlets and books about public policy.
Awards
He received a knighthood in the 2018 New Year’s honours list.
In 1993 Sir Nick won the inaugural Financial Times David Thomas Prize, in remembrance of an FT journalist killed on assignment in Kuwait in 1991.
Personal Life
Sir Nick lives in California with his wife and three sons.
