Nick Clegg on Desert Island Discs - really?

[carocaro]

Why is the Deputy PM on Desert Island Discs right now?

I don't get it. I don't want to know what his favourite records are and why.

Nobel Peace winners, actors, authors etc YES they have something to say about what they have done.

He doesn't. It's politics, our lives. It's all a PR push to try and raise his profile from tea-boy in waiting.

Knowing that he tried to set fire to a cactus at school will not endear me to him and make me have a different opinion about his politics or policies.

Get off my radio and stop ruining my Sunday.

He was ok.

Don't see why he shouldn't be on it.

I thought this thread would be one disapproving of him smoking.

I didn't listen to the programme but surely admitting you'd take a box of ciggies to a desert island is as uncool/yuk as him saying he'd slept with no more than 30 women. Neither of these facts are going to impress people are they?

I have no problem with him or any other politician being on the programme.

I would sooner have Cleggy on DID than fucking Sarah Stukas.....the managing director of a modelling agency. Vacuous is not the word. She was awful. And managed to defend Kate Moss's coke habit. Awful.

That would be Sarah Doukas then?!

"So you're OK with completely ignoring the person a plane-crash away from running the country beyond a few offical speeches and his employment record? I think you'd have liked Soviet Russia... that's the kind of faceless bureaucrat they used to specialise in."

So why does listening to him on DID make him a better politician, because we now know he lies a fag and radiohead? Is it because he ws on DID that he now won't plane-crash the country - it's magic!

Please do explain.

And yes you do get your PR to call DID when you are the DPM! That's how it works!! If you think the BBC make the call who is on then you are sadly mistaken. THe BBC have to lick their behinds and they did not hammer the BBC too much in the BIG CUTS, they have to humour them.

YABU Why shouldn't he be on Desert Island Discs, he's a high profile figure in public life. I sense a lot of the people who oppose Clegg being on DID oppose the coalition and are just using these example as an outlet.

Carocaro - no-one's saying listening to him on DID makes him a better politician...?

He has as much 'right' (entitlement?) to be on there as any other public figure - more so than many celebs as he has a key role in running the country. Why wouldn't you want to understand a little more what makes someone like that tick?

I mean, you're never going to get any amazing insights - it's DID, ffs - but I'm really not understanding some people's arbitrary criteria about who should and shouldn't appear. No politicians. Oh, but ex politicians are OK. Sometimes. When the wind's blowing in the right direction. There are no rules on this. He is as potentially as interesting or as dull a guest as anyone they ask on.

But I do agree with the others - I'd personally rather get to know more about someone who's within spitting distance of leading the country than some of the other guests they have. And if you wouldn't, well fair enough - just switch off the radio.

"So why does listening to him on DID make him a better politician"

It doesn't, of course. All this thread is about is that you don't think he's interesting, important or accomplished enough to appear on a half-hour talk radio show whereas I (and many others you'll when the RAJAR numbers come out) think that being Deputy PM is qualification enough.

DID specialises in interviewing all kinds of people and not just the usual book-peddling celeb-du-jour. Radio 4 at its best. If it was 'ruining your Saturday' then can I recommend changing channels

It's a good format and an interesting programme a times. What concerns me is his lack of fairness at home but at least he recognises it. He probably earns a lot less thanhis wife and she works full time with 3 small children. I hope he is doing huge amounts of help at weekends to make up and is paying for a lot of extra nanny and cleaning help to try to right the balance.

did he really get asked how many people he slept with?

Think the smoking thing is really ill-judged!

I didn't listen to this, but may download the podcast. Do I care what Sarah Doukas has to say? No, not really-but I'd be quite interested to hear what NC said. It's horses for courses. And if he's a smoker, then he's a smoker, big deal- he's saying he would take the fags, not that he'd set up a community on the island and then force small children into chain smoking.

"did he really get asked how many people he slept with?"

That was a question from a long time ago... not the kind of thing they ask on Desert Island Discs :)