Q&A with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg - catch up here

[KateMumsnet]

Hello all

At lunchtime today we'll be holding a live, in-person Q&A session with Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg, with an audience composed entirely of Mumsnetters.

With luck (and a decent wireless connection) we'll be live-blogging the whole thing, so do join us between 12.45 and 2pm to hear how the DPM responds to MNers' searching questions - and let us know what you think as the session unfolds.

'S hardly fair, Gibbering, the Tories have 5 x the MPs the Lib Dems do. Much as I'd have enjoyed seeing them implement their entire manifesto, it wouldn't have been terribly democratic. What would you rather they'd dropped instead?

I travelled down to London from the Nw today and sadly didn't get to ask a question but it was really interesting.
Could we not ask the other leaders for a similar chat and this time have it in the North or Midlands? I thought NC pitched his answers at the SE vote, which I suppose is understandable.

'ooh we are going to have a live chat with Nick Clegg but you can only ask Q's if you do not work and live in North London.'

do not work, and live....
the joy of comma's.

What would I rather they'd drop? The entire coalition. Never mind that rubbish about 5 years between elections which requires un-mandated crap to be forced on us. And start some serious debate into how we reconstruct a broken democracy.

Incidentally, talking about uni fees and the way it hasn't affected young student uptake, anyone else seen the numbers about the collapse in mature student uptake? This is what I mean about half-truths. My profession was destroyed by austerity so I'd quite like to re-train but can't afford it -and into what anyway, given the wholesale attack on the professions. And of course those of us who were not in posts at the time but trained etc were abandoned, along with so many other people these clowns have thrown on the scrapheap (I'm a sahm at the mo by the way).

So that was enlightening then.

Hi all, Nick Clegg and team have promised to do a pre-election webchat so those of you who couldn't make it in person to this event will get the chance to put questions we hope.

Thanks Justine, and for this one too.

And those who traveled to attend with true yes or no answer questions who day on the wrong side of the room to get passed the mic?

I know you tried Justine, and I wouldn't have wanted to chair but that was a bit disappointing!

Who SAT on the wrong side of the room.

There goes my chance to make a point, blooming autocorrect

We're really sorry if there was a discrepancy with the mic - it did make its way around both 'sides' of the circle (we think!) but many apologies if one side got a bit more airtime than the other. We'll try to do better next time (if we do something like this again).

Thought you might like to see that the Telegraph says we got a scoop on Clegg's comments about quotas, plus a couple of other bits.

And his remarks about benefits sanctions being too 'trigger happy' are reported here.

And some pictures of the event here for anyone who wants a look.

Just got back to west Hants, I did enjoy it, good to see he's not disillusioned or jaded in his job and still seems to have enthusiasm for the role. And tough to cover so many queries in a short space of time. All the littluns were so well behaved too, as it got to 2pm they all seemed to be ready to sing themselves to nap time :) Well done everyone!

He was cornered by the lifts for a while. Gave very political answers to questions about refuge and the North South divide before being dragged away by his team.

I went down for the day from Midlands area and though I didn't get to ask my question - about votes for 16 and 17 yr olds (as dd turning 16 just before this election, and campaigning with her Youth Council for this ...)

Anyway as I was saying though I didn't get to ask Clegg I did get to meet Justine and chat to her and to other MNers about votes for young people, and the session in general, so happy enough!

I had loads of other questions too, as did everyone so it seems!

It was good overall. Apart from one question though he was obviously very well prepped and couldn't give a yes/ no answer which meant we didn't get through a lot of questions.

His team were lovely but all seemed so young!

We've made the news here

Yey! - brief clip of us all - with me in back row - on channel 4 news at about 7.15 - 7.20.
Catch it again on 4+1 from 8.15 ish?
They could have included more of our excellent questions though (instead of an interview with some other young Mums in a cafe half of whom said they didn't know what they thought!)
Channel 4 guy did tell me in the lift that they were likely to use pics of Mums with babies. As if we aren't still Mums through the teenage years too!

Love the seating arrangement. Clegg looks like he was sent into a bear pit . Please get us Cameron, please, please, please. I'd be good, I promise.

Hello all

A couple of videos from today's MNQs event: Nick Clegg on what he wants to do about , and on .

Nick Clegg on quotas for LibDem MPs

Well done MNrs who attended! (And esp well done Whitershadeofpale -I'm assuming you had a part in the csa questions!)

Channel 13 on Freeview
French air crash first

We all saw it that time! Did you?!

I did whistling

I missed it can you get the news on catchup?