Just when I thought it wasn’t possible to dislike Nick Clegg any more than I already do, up he bounces, bright-eyed and bushy-tailed, begging to be metaphorically stroked despite committing yet another act of breath-taking hypocrisy.
Last week, it was his failure to take decisive action — having first pretended he knew nothing about it — over the sexual harassment claims made by young women against one of his party’s most powerful men that enraged me.
This week it’s the announcement that he — an atheist and the leader of a party that has pledged to make faith schools more inclusive — has succeeded in getting his son into one of the most over-subscribed Catholic state schools in Britain.
Nick Clegg - an atheist and the leader of a party that has pledged to make faith schools more inclusive - has succeeded in getting his son into one of the most over-subscribed Catholic state schools in BritainEntry to the London Oratory School is dependent on at least one parent not only being Catholic, but regularly attending Sunday Mass at the Brompton Oratory for at least three years.
Even with these strict criteria, the school had 800 applicants for its 160 places. How very fortunate that the Cleggs were, as the Deputy Prime Minister put it himself yesterday, ‘lucky’ enough to get one.
Now, I’ve no objection to Nick Clegg giving his children the very best education possible. Indeed, it’s one of the most basic parental instincts and in West London — where he and I both live — competition for the top schools is ferocious.
More... Nick and Miriam Clegg will send eldest son to the exclusive Catholic London Oratory school (the same one chosen by the Blairs) BBC's publicity-prone Justin Webb takes to Twitter over Clegg sending his son to the London Oratory Britain risks becoming 'a safe haven for Europe's criminals', Clegg warns Cameron in row over clawing justice powers back from BrusselsThere are a handful of outstanding selective state schools in nearby Surrey, all demanding extraordinarily high levels of academic ability. If your child is average or merely bright — as opposed to super-bright — you haven’t a hope of getting them in.
And then life becomes very difficult, because they may well end up at the local sink school, which seeks to find the lowest common denominator rather than cultivate each individual pupil’s spark.
Catholic schools, with their emphasis on academic rigour and discipline, have a deserved reputation for achieving outstanding results. And in the capital — where most boroughs have no selective state schools — that puts their value beyond rubies.
Nick Clegg - an atheist married to a Catholic - told us earlier this year that he wouldn't impose his political will on his wife Miriam Gonzalez Durante (pictured) when it came to educating their childrenReligious: Entry to the London Oratory School is dependent on at least one parent not only being Catholic, but regularly attending Sunday Mass at the Brompton Oratory for at least three years
No wonder Nick Clegg — an atheist married to a Catholic — told us earlier this year that he wouldn’t impose his political will on his wife when it came to educating their children.
If you’re neither Catholic nor the parent of a genius, there is one other sure-fire way to ensure your child benefits from an outstanding education: you can grit your teeth, resign yourself to working all hours, and commit to going private, at a cost of upwards of £15,000 a year per child.
Clegg is one of the few who can afford school fees. So why has he opted for a state school instead?For the vast majority who can’t afford that sort of money, that leaves the last option: sharpen your elbows and enter the mother of all middle-class battles. I use the word mother advisedly, for it’s on their shoulders this fight usually falls — and there are many who will stop at nothing to get their child into the state school of their choice. Tactics include religious conversion, lying about your address, taking out a bank loan to fund a short-term lease on a property within the designated 150-yard range of the only decent state school for miles, and even sleeping with the head of said school (one mother swears to me she knows a woman who did this).
But Nick Clegg is the Deputy Prime Minister, married to a high-earning lawyer. He’s one of the few who can easily afford school fees. So why has he opted for a state school instead (albeit one that provides an education on a par with the country’s best private schools)?
The answer is that, like David Cameron, he’s terrified of being seen as elitist. The son of a banker, Clegg benefited from the best education money can buy, at Westminster School, and from there he went on to Cambridge.
It’s an education that’s served him well — but he’s all too cynically aware that there’s no political capital to be gained from giving his own sons the same privilege.
By sending his son to the London Oratory School, Nick Clegg is merely following in the footsteps of the biggest hypocrite of them all, Tony Blair, who sent his two elder boys there.
He managed to get his eldest son, Euan a place in 1994 — despite the fact that, as the then Labour leader, Blair not only opposed grant-maintained schools but lived eight miles away, in Islington.
But we’ve learned quite a bit about hypocrisy since Blair went on to win three elections. What Nick Clegg needs to learn in turn is that voters can now sniff it out as easily as they can spot elitism.
And, as he’ll find out to his cost, it’s hypocrisy that’s harder to forgive.
Debrett’s says it’s perfectly acceptable to give your dinner guests takeaway food, as long as you own up first and serve it on your best china. For those of us who are prone to culinary disasters it’s the perfect excuse: the next time your boeuf bourguignon comes out like stewed leather, or your Thai chicken stays resolutely pink, blame it on the takeaway shop — and then simply send out for some more.
According to a new study, we spend twice as much on gifts for Mother’s Day as for Father’s Day. I have no problem with that at all. Of course, a handmade card is worth any amount of money, and I still cherish the clay pendant my daughter made for me when she was four. All I’m saying is — it would be lovely to have an expensive gift as well.
Who’d be Yasmin’s daughter?Yasmin Le Bon looks absolutely incredible at 48. Good for her. It’s less good for her daughter, Amber, 23 who has become a model but acknowledges ruefully that she realises her mother is in ‘a different league’. One of the rules of life is that mothers should take great care not to outshine their daughters. Good for her: Yasmin Le Bon looks absolutely incredible at 48. Her daughter, Amber, 23 (right) has become a model but acknowledges ruefully that she realises her mother is in 'a different league' How to be a pushy patientShocking new figures show that in Britain we have less chance of a healthy life than people in most major European countries, including Spain, Italy and even crisis-hit Greece.
Alcohol and a bad diet are partly to blame. But the other reason is that we’re simply too British: we don’t want to make a fuss or discuss intimate details.
We’re constantly told surgeries are taken up with time-wasters — but it’s hard to see how, given that it’s impossible to get through on the phone to book an appointment, and when you do get through, you’re given a date three weeks hence (unless you’re brave enough to say it’s an emergency).
The appointment itself lasts five minutes, ten if you’re lucky, and too many GPs simply fob off patients with a diet sheet or prescription.
Our European counterparts, by contrast, value themselves more highly and demand to see a doctor immediately.When it comes to our health, we need to ditch the stiff upper lip, and get a little bit more Continental. They think their health’s worth making a fuss over. We need to do the same.
Still stunning: Sharon Stone says she's given up dieting, thrown away her skinny clothes and would rather eat steak than survive on juice A macrobiotic cook has published a new book which says middle-aged women could make themselves much sexier if they gave up alcohol, caffeine and processed food, and replaced them with healthy wholegrains. I favour instead the approach of Basic Instinct star Sharon Stone, who’s still stunning at 55, more than two decades after the erotic thriller brought her global fame.She says she’s given up dieting, thrown away her skinny clothes and would rather eat steak than survive on juice - thus proving that sex appeal is still very much a basic instinct, not a macrobiotic one.
The traditional dilemma for dieters is that when you lose weight from your bottom you also end up with a drawn or saggy face. In the case of Kate Winslet, looking svelte in a photoshoot for Harper’s Bazaar, different forces seem to be at work.
In the accompanying interview — if you can call it that — she manages to talk complete gibberish (‘I think I can see more clearly now ... I have so much more material to draw on for work — rubble, bricks — and I know I can carry it now’).
Her currently minuscule bottom seems to have come at the expense not of her face, but her brain.
Poetic lessonBroadcaster and writer Clive James — whose marriage broke up after his eight-year affair with a model who described him as a ‘wolf’ who had ‘ravaged’ her — has been reconciled with his wife.
Terminally ill with emphysema and leukaemia, he has now published a powerful and deeply sad poem about coming to terms with the end of his life and his bad behaviour.
‘Cherish the prison of your waning day. Remember liberty, and what it cost . . .
‘The storm blew out and this is the dead calm. The pain is going where the passion went.’Anyone contemplating an affair would do well to read it first. To paraphrase what Marilyn Monroe once said about poetry, it might save them a lot of time. Not to mention heartache.
A survey has found that one in seven women admits she throws out her husband’s clothes without telling him. Only one in seven?
