We salute you, Nick Clegg – you have mastered the art of failing upwards

The former leader of the Liberal Democrats has been promoted to president of global affairs at Meta, previously known as Facebook – has he forgotten about austerity?

There is a very good documentary on BBC iPlayer at the moment called The Decade the Rich Won. It explains how the very wealthiest “made out like bandits” in the years following the 2008 financial crisis, while everyone else was hit with brutal austerity.

George Osborne, the chancellor at the time, told us that “we’re all in it together”, but of course we weren’t. In the documentary, a trader at Citibank said it was the most lucrative period of his career – he eventually quit, sickened by the injustice of making so much money during the worst recession for decades.

One man who pops up rather a lot in the documentary is Nick Clegg, who, lest we forget, was the deputy prime minister from 2010 to 2015. “We took some decisions, which I obviously wish we didn’t have to take,” he says sombrely, eyes perhaps a little dewy. “I think it’s obvious now that the consequences [of the coalition government’s economic decisions] have not been as positive as I would have liked.”

Later, when discussing the failure of austerity, he adds, with a little bit more fight: “So, the Conservatives started talking about inequality because they realised it was politically convenient to do so. I’d been doing so incessantly since the first day.” Bravo.

So what became of this justice warrior, I wonder, the lone voice of reason and decency in David Cameron’s coalition government, the table-thumper who simply would not stand idly by? He would, surely, want to roll his sleeves up and put things right. Or just get out and join Facebook. Either way, I suppose.

Yes, Clegg’s fortunes (in the most literal sense) have been very much on the up since he lost his seat in 2017. A year later, he did what anyone with a steely determination to right the wrongs of their political past would do – and went to work for Mark Zuckerberg. Clegg was appointed vice-president of global affairs and communications at Facebook (now Meta). But as of this week, he has been promoted. Now, the former leader of the Liberal Democrats is president of global affairs at Meta. If it sounds senior, that’s because it is.

“We need a senior leader at the level of myself (for our products) and Sheryl [Sandberg] (for our business) who can lead and represent us for all of our policy issues globally,” Zuckerberg said. “As Nick takes on this new leadership role, it will enable me to focus more of my energy on leading the company as we build new products for the future, and it will support Sheryl as she continues to focus on the success of our business.”

Now, you don’t need me to tell you that Facebook has not always been the good guy. There have, you will remember, been some “issues” with data collection, elections, freedom of speech and taxes (Facebook paid £28.5m in UK corporation tax in 2019 on £1bn profits). It is not an obvious destination for a Liberal Democrat, though Clegg doesn’t see it that way. In 2019, he described Facebook as “a great American success story”, adding, “I don’t think it’s a very American tradition to start penalising success.” By which I can only assume he means “his” success.

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It would all be quite amusing if it wasn’t so depressing. There was a time when Clegg appeared to offer something different to British politics. “Cleggmania” sounds absurd now, but in 2010, it really was a thing. Here was a Lib Dem leader who looked normal, had sound policies, was popular with voters and might actually win.

We know what happened next, of course. The moment Clegg went into coalition with the Tories, he rolled over, reneged on his promise not to raise tuition fees and, as the BBC documentary reminds us, supported a policy of eye-watering austerity. Perhaps we shouldn’t be surprised, then, that Clegg seemed happy to dispense with his principles so readily, walk away from politics, and join Facebook. But it still stings to see such abject failure rewarded in this way. (Clegg also wrote a book in 2017 called How to Stop Brexit, so do you see how lucrative failure is something of a pattern?)

And when you place it in this context, the brass neck of Clegg to appear in a documentary called The Decade the Rich Won is quite staggering. I can only assume he thought it was a celebration of individuals like him, who followed the money and ran – leaving the rest of us to pick up the pieces.