We went to the pub with Nick Clegg for a natter

He’s upset about Toblerone and has never been to Fabric


Dressed in a blazer, jeans and scarf, Nick Clegg doesn’t look too different from most other men in their forties, but yet he instantly stands out from the crowd. The busy pub we’re in all turns and nods their heads at their friends as he briskly walks past them.

Having seen him on the news continuously, presenting Have I Got News For You, and also having seen his face pinned to many an angry students dart board, Nick Clegg comes across different in real life. Friendly, warm and down-to-earth, he’s miles apart from the evil, money grabbing monster the Daily Mail would have you believe he is.

Nick’s been in the news a lot recently as he’s called for the legalisation of cannabis, so we thought it high time to invite him for a pub lunch to discuss his views on drugs, tuition fees, and Brexit.

Hi Nick, so you’ve discussed the legalisation of cannabis with the Tab earlier this week, but we would like to know a bit about your views on harder drugs.

What is your opinion on nightclubs like Fabric and Warehouse Project? Should we work with clubs associated with heavy drug use, or do you think they should be shut down?

I don’t think clubs should become a legal black hole, where the authorities turn a blind eye if they know that drugs are heavily being used. That is not healthy at all, not just because of the drugs involved, but you can’t have the laws of the land selectively applied.

I do feel that, not that I’ve ever been to Fabric or that my clubbing days are anything other than distant memory, people who run clubs have a duty of care. It’s not a cattle market where you shovel people in and turn a blind eye to what they do or stick up their noses. These clubs shouldn’t be able to wash their hands of what’s going on inside, especially if they see youngsters taking drugs.

But generally I’m not in favour of closing things down altogether. A balance needs to be struck between the freedom of great clubs and a level of responsibility.

There’s been a lot of controversy surrounding clubs like Fabric

How do you feel about testing pills and broadcasting which ones are dangerous, to warn people not to use them?

It’s brilliant. In Columbia I went to a government funded laboratory which does this. People bring in their drugs to be tested, and if there are impurities which can kill, messages will be sent out, particularly on social media, to warn people off consuming that particular product.

Do you think drug testing is something we should encourage at clubs and music festivals? For example, they tried this out at Secret Garden Party this summer.

My attitude in all of this is to reduce harm. Drugs are harmful. Sometimes so harmful that they are fatal.

You can do what the government, zealots, and papers like the Daily Mail say, claiming that you can brush it under the carpet by banning them. Or you can recognise that, whether we like it or not, drugs have been used for thousands of years and will continue to be. There is a lot of evidence to show that those schemes, without in any way condoning drugs or interfering with the law, do at least stop people taking things that are incredibly harmful.

Do you think we should introduce schemes other countries have in regards to drugs, for example Portugal or Amsterdam?

I think we should do our own version. But if you bring something out into the open, it’s actually easier to clamp down on it as you can regulate it. All the incidents where people have taken drugs which have had horrible effects on their physical and psychological well being, it’s often because these substances are stuffed with the most awful things. This is the problem of the whole industry being in the hands of criminals; they will sell really horrible stuff, some of which can be fatal. If you regulate what is in them it cuts down on these incidents.

Banning only works if you believe in the long run it is possible to entirely remove it from human society. The banning movement is only there to make people feel good, as if they’ve done something – banging the drum for banning. And that’s what irritates me so much, is that people think they’re being proactive towards drugs, but they’re taking a very soft approach towards criminals.

We need a tough but tender approach. My attitude, is that if you’re anti the harm that drugs cause people, you should be pro-reform.

On a smaller scale, do you think that universities could be doing more independently to cut down on the harm done by drugs?

Of course, we all can. If you’re running a university, it’s completely naive to think that nobody will be taking drugs on campus, regardless of what the law says. I think again, you have a duty of care. Which is why what I’ve seen in other countries strikes me as extremely intelligent. They’re not saying drugs use is a good thing, they’re saying they’ll help you not take ones which will do you a lot of damage.

So how do you feel about decriminalising prostitution? This is something that’s been discussed at Sheffield University a lot recently.

I think that, if it’s obvious that criminalising prostitution is leaving women and young girls in a much more vulnerable position than they would be otherwise, then it would be very odd for us, as a society, not to do more to protect them. And on the whole, bringing things out of the shadows means we can protect from harm much better.

The problem with this whole debate is the language, for instance if you say ‘decriminalised’ then some people will think that you are advocating drugs or prostitution. And what we need to do is turn it completely on it’s head and say ‘if you’re worried about the harm and damage, how do we help them most?’ By putting them actively in the hands of criminals who do not care for their safety? Or is it better to put them in the hands of the authorities?

But it is a really tough linguistic battle. Words like legislate, decriminalise or advocate, are the barrier in this political debate.

Let’s talk a bit about tuition fees, do you get a lot of questions about them still?

Yes, but much less now.

So, what do you think of TEF?

I’ve probably avoided this as I don’t really want to talk about tuition fees! Students should benefit from excellent teaching, but I’m sceptical of this scheme. In theory, I don’t hugely object to putting pressure on teachers in universities and getting them to raise their game to give students a better education. For a long, long time, bad teaching in universities wasn’t addressed at all. And understandably for an academic, you focus on research and improving you’re big thoughts as opposed to really helping the students.

I’m just not sure how you can do this in a fair way without spawning a huge and fairly random bureaucracy. You have to be careful in case you create a feudalistic, tick box exercise. I’m probably more sceptical of the means than I am of the ends.

For fees to be ratcheted up and go through the £10,000 bracket, is not what I would ever have wanted.

TEF is also being considered to regulate international students that join UK universities. What do you think of this?

I think the idea is that only the very top universities who achieve the highest TEF scores from being free to take as many foreign students as they want.

What do you think the future holds for students in post-Brexit Britain? Do you think there are any positives to come of this?

No, I can’t see very many positives. I think we can try and make lots of efforts to mitigate the effect on higher education sector, but it is potentially one of the areas that is going to be hit the heaviest for a number of reasons.

Be under no illusion that the government’s approach to Brexit runs a huge risk of screwing up the whole higher education system because it’s a sector that depends massively on attracting funds from elsewhere. Brexit could discourage or deter foreign students from coming here. EU research funding is clearly drying up, especially under the science and engineering fields, something which has been an important source of income. Some universities receive more income from the EU for research, it is more than some European countries attract.

But it’s not just the money, it’s for euro-wide research projects, and some scientists have found themselves unable to partake in future projects and it destroys the intellectual leadership of research in this country.

Plus, I have no idea what the government’s plans are for universities’ involvement in ERASMUS. Who wants to stop British youngsters from benefiting from these excellent European university exchange schemes?

Do you think students should be taken out of the net migration figure?

I think they should be taken out all together. It’s something I argued for when I was in government, but the Tories wouldn’t have anything to do with it. It’s senseless to place students in the same brackets as economic migrants. I haven’t met a single person who voted for Brexit who said there were too many students in this country.

How do you feel about Toblerone and Marmite effected by Brexit?

I’m very saddened by Toblerone. I don’t mind paying more for Marmite, but I would rather pay for something that actually looks like a Toblerone. But to be honest, I prefer Vegemite. Having said that, I could eat Twiglets all day. Years ago, I used to love having one bag of Malteasers in one pocket, and a bag of Twiglets in the other and the mix of them is excellent.

And what do you think of Sheffield’s own Henderson’s Relish?

In fact, in the last cabinet meeting when I was in government, I gave all the members of the cabinet a bag of Henderson’s Relish chips.

What do you think of the University Arms, what with the Lib Dems being involved with saving it?

I think if people really like the pub and use it, and given it’s history, I can totally understand why people are campaigning to save it. But pubs are being threatened everywhere. Under legislation that we passed in the coalition, a community can club together and get an asset of community value protected from normal planning rules, but Sheffield council has been much more unwilling to enforce this.

Are you happy about the results of the by-election?

Yes, it was a great result. I wasn’t surprised at the end actually, you sort of felt it in the last few days of the election campaign.

And how do you feel about Trump?

Unfortunately I wasn’t surprised that he won. At the moment, if you have one politician advocating tweaking the status quo and another saying they want to smash it, the smashers will win. That’s the sort of phase we are in in politics, the politics of rage. So by the end I had a sinking feeling that he would win.

Finally, everyone has said that 2016 has gone to hell in a handcart – do you have hope that 2017 is going to be better?

No, I think it will be quite a tough year. I think we are going to see a lot of turbulence in Europe, and we’re going to see this country tying itself in impenetrable knots around Brexit, with people on both sides being angry. So I do worry that the politics of rage and division have some course to run. So sadly my hopes aren’t high, sorry!