First appearance at Prime Minister’s Questions (Wednesday 9th January 2008)Clegg... made a confident first appearance at the weekly question time as leader. (ePolitix 9/1/08)
He was solid and serious and chose a topic - fuel poverty - that will reinforce his credentials as a progressive politician. (Andrew Sparrow, Guardian 9/1/08)
Commentators later described his manner as brisk and businesslike, as he made his mark at the weekly ritual (Times, 9/1/08)
confident performance (ITN 9/1/08)
Nick Clegg did pretty well at prime minister’s questions yesterday, making a solid start as Lib Dem leader. (Guardian 10/1/08)
MPs of all shades seemed impressed by Nick Clegg’s first performance at Prime Minister’s Questions. No stumbling, clear delivery, strong choice of subject. (Sam Coates, The Times, 9/1/08)
Confident, assured, he… will see today as an auspicious start. (Sky News 9/1/08)
Speech to one day manifesto conference (Saturday 12th January 2008)
Plans to liberate schools from excessive state interference and guarantee hospital treatment to patients within a set time will be set out today by Nick Clegg. (Guardian, 12/01/08)
The lowest GCSE grades should be abolished to drive up school standards, according to Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg. (Sun Online, 12/01/08)
this was Clegg back to his formidable best … I think he is spot on in trying to make his party the authentic voice of public service reform, committed to the real priorities of the 21st Century electorate and the challenge of linking our expectations as consumers with our role as citizens. … this was an impressive and robust beginning. (Matthew d’Ancona, Spectator, 12/01/08)
General
Lib Dem leader Nick Clegg has said MPs' pay rises should be linked to the state pension. … [He] called for an end to the "unseemly spectacle" of MPs voting for their own rises. (BBC News Online, 14/01/08)
Mr Clegg has announced a flurry of initiatives since his narrow victory over Chris Huhne last month. … He has established a Commission on Social Mobility, which will be chaired by Martin Narey, the chief executive of Barnardo’s. Its remit is to come up with policy plans to help children from disadvantaged backgrounds to fulfil their potential. (Guardian, 12/01/08)
[A] poll, undertaken over the weekend [of 5-6 January], shows that the election of Nick Clegg as Liberal Democrat leader has given his party a three-point boost to 19 per cent, all at the expense of the Tories, down to 37 per cent. (The Times, 8/1/08)
The poll shows Nick Clegg, the new Liberal Democrat leader, retaining the extra support his election gave his party (Telegraph, 12/01/08)
Nick Clegg this week seemed to me to be responding to [an] anxiety for honest clarity. (Matthew Parris, The Times 22/12/07)
Mr Cameron's closest colleagues admitted … that he [Clegg] was the result they most feared. George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, told one MP … that Mr Clegg would be very effective in challenging for Tory votes. … They did not want to admit, and do not now, that their real bête noire was the youthful, normal-sounding, guy-next-door-looking Mr Clegg (Telegraph 26/12/07)
It seems the only person speaking up with a broad sense of [the dangers of ID cards] … is Nick Clegg … I have to say I cheered when I heard this, not only because I agree, but because it is entirely salutary, in these sheepish times, to see a British politician express his personal feelings so strongly. (Andrew O’Hagan, Telegraph 1/1/08)
Mr Clegg's relative youth and ability to communicate with ordinary voters will cement him in the job. His party will pose a major threat to the Tories. (Sun 19/12/07)
A senior Conservative MP has admitted that Nick Clegg … could hurt David Cameron's leadership by appealing to traditional Tory voters. Patrick Mercer, a former Tory frontbencher, has warned colleagues that Mr Clegg is able to make an "extremely favourable impression" on Conservative supporters. (Telegraph 17/11/07)
But if [Labour] despondency continues … it might actually be Labour votes that Nick Clegg takes, that he's the sort of nice guy the Labour voting public might actually decide to back. (Senior Labour MP Frank Field, BBC, 4/11/07)