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" I say this as a young dad seeing children going into primary school: I don't think we should underestimate the formative effect on a child of those first years in primary school. "
Nick Clegg
Think
Child
Children
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" Most of what needs to be changed in the euro zone can be done without treaty changes. The demand for treaty change is as political as it is legal and I don't think it's going to happen soon. "
Nick Clegg
Change
Changes
Political
" I will not accept a new wave of fiscal retrenchment, of belt-tightening, without asking people at the top to make their contribution, to make an additional contribution. I don't think you can ask people on middle and low incomes, who, after all, are the vast majority of the British population, to bear the brunt of this adjustment. "
Nick Clegg
Wave
New
People
" I am a passionate believer in freedom of speech. I would not support anything which would impinge on aggressive robust freedom of the British press, but when things go wrong and there has been outright illegality, there should be proper accountability. "
Nick Clegg
Support
Accountability
Freedom
" The Labour Party has become consumed by collective bile towards... the Liberal Democrats. That portrays a rather nasty arrogance. "
Nick Clegg
Democrats
Arrogance
Party
" I didn't become leader to transform the Liberal Democrats into an enlarged form of the Electoral Reform Society. It's not the be all and end all for us. There are other very, very key ambitions in politics, not least social mobility and life chances, that I care about as passionately if not more. "
Nick Clegg
Politics
End
Leader
" We are keen to stress that a strong euro zone is good for a strong United Kingdom. It's not for us to write the changes that the euro zone needs to embark on. "
Nick Clegg
Good
Changes
Stress
" My head spins. One moment I'm told I'm too edgy, then people say I'm too angry, then that I show too much passion... make your minds up. "
Nick Clegg
Too Much
People
Moment
" Any government, of whatever composition, needs to mobilise opinion way beyond its own ranks in order to do the difficult things that it does. "
Nick Clegg
Difficult
Own
Opinion
" The caricature of what George Osborne is doing on the fiscal side is absurd. If you read some of the commentary, particularly from the left, you would think he was turning the clock back to the 1930s. "
Nick Clegg
Think
Back
Clock
" We have got to make sure there is proper independent scrutiny and accountability for people in the press, just as there should be in any other industry where things go wrong. But let's not try and think it is for politicians or governments to tell people what they stick in newspapers. That is deeply illiberal. "
Nick Clegg
Tell
Try
Accountability
" With the EU taking in ten more countries and adopting a new Constitution, organisations need more than ever intelligent professional help in engaging with the EU institutions. "
Nick Clegg
Constitution
Help
Need
" Although I am a young leader, I actually came to it strangely quite late. I have a different perspective, partly because of my family, partly because of what I did for ten years: negotiating trade deals, working out in Central Asia doing assistance projects. "
Nick Clegg
Doing
Family
I Am
" I have got instincts that, I think, are very much in tune with people's very keen sense to see something different. I did not dream of being in politics since I was knee-high to a grasshopper. I was not involved in student politics, or not in that partisan way. "
Nick Clegg
Student
People
Dream
" Liberal Democrats in government will not follow the last Labour government by sounding the retreat on the protection of civil liberties in the United Kingdom. It continues to be essential that our civil liberties are safeguarded, and that the state is not given the powers to snoop on its citizens at will. "
Nick Clegg
Government
Liberal
Democrats
" The UK is not going to leave the European Union. Of course not. We are inextricably wound up with Europe. In terms of culture, history and geography, we are a European nation. "
Nick Clegg
Up
Nation
History
" I'm very lucky. I am one of those people who is able to go home, shut the front door and completely focus on the kids. "
Nick Clegg
People
Door
Focus
" What we should be doing in the EU as a whole is more economic integration in the single market, rather than less. "
Nick Clegg
Economic
Market
More
" The choices politicians make must be based on values - not an arbitrary, axe-wielding approach to public spending or a dismal exchange between Gordon Brown and David Cameron about percentages that sounds like an argument between different book-keepers. "
Nick Clegg
Politicians
Argument
Values
" I wish more people knew that the only one of the three main parties where not a single MP flipped from one property to the next, and not a single MP avoided capital-gains tax, where every single London MP did not claim a penny of second-home allowance, was the Liberal Democrats. "
Nick Clegg
Penny
Three
Tax
" If the euro zone doesn't come up with a comprehensive vision of its own future, you'll have a whole range of nationalist, xenophobic and extreme movements increasing across the European Union. And, frankly, questions about the British debate on EU membership will just be a small sideshow compared to the rise of political populism. "
Nick Clegg
Political
Future
Vision
" Our Sheffield and London homes are worth well over a million but the bank owns most of them - we are mortgaged up to the gills. "
Nick Clegg
Up
Well
Over
" We need to teach our kids, because there is such a celebrity culture at the moment, that however rich you are, however famous you are, however glamorous you are, everyone has to live by the same rules. "
Nick Clegg
Rich
Moment
Live
" One of the big changes in politics has been because families, individuals, have felt worried, insecure... worried about the economy, worried about their jobs, worried about their kids' futures... actually the disconnect between the public and media discourse and people's everyday concerns has become bigger not smaller. "
Nick Clegg
Become
Media
Changes
" I've just been away for a week, and I dropped my BlackBerry in the sea while I was messing around with the kids, so no one can reach me. Blissful. I heartily recommend it. "
Nick Clegg
Reach
Week
Away
" I think that the days when newspaper barons could basically click their fingers and governments would snap to attention have gone. "
Nick Clegg
Gone
Days
Attention
" Joining the Liberal Party was a no-brainer for me... And when you are a young man, you don't get a calculator out saying, 'Am I going to get to power?' You get propelled forward by idealism. "
Nick Clegg
Me
You
Saying
" One thing I have frankly decided is that when it comes to political reform we have two conservative parties in British politics. Both the Labour and Conservative parties have constantly and repeatedly failed to honour promises they have made about reforming, cleaning, modernising our clapped-out system. "
Nick Clegg
Political
Promises
Politics
" Do I get up every morning and ask: am I doing the things that I believe in and am I doing them for the best possible motives? Yes. Unambiguously yes. "
Nick Clegg
Best
Doing
Believe
" I would be open about the fact that, clearly, politicians should be able to speak to each other. David Cameron doesn't seem to accept this, but if the British people have voted then of course you have to try and provide good stable government. "
Nick Clegg
People
Good
You
" When I became leader, I made very clear I was not going to choose the easy life. I have always taken risks. I don't like comfort-zone politics. "
Nick Clegg
Risks
Easy
Leader