Last updated at 13:10, Monday, 18 June 2012

They say everyone has a novel inside them and deputy prime ministers are no exception. Nick Clegg admits that in his early 20s he began writing a book but never finished it.

Politicians are well known for their works of fiction and though Mr Clegg doesn’t say what his was about, Reiver speculates that it could have been a political thriller.

After all Douglas Hurd and Chris Mullin have both penned novels from the same genre.

Perhaps it was about a young, good-looking, dynamic politician – let’s call him Mick Legg – who became leader of his party without anyone having ever heard of him.

Then in the run-up to a general election his TV appearances made middle-aged housewives swoon across the land and the media were soon talking about a nationwide wave of Legg-mania.

He swept voters off their feet with his dreamy talk of a mansion tax, a fairer voting system and a cast-iron guarantee not to increase university tuition fees.

But then young Mick fell in with a gang of public schoolboys who proved to be a bad influence on him, and led him away from the straight and centre. They mocked his fairer voting plans, twisted his arm until he dropped the idea of a mansion tax and backed a tax cut for the country’s richest people instead, and dared him to vote to increase tuition fees to £9,000 per year.

Then come the next general election he got re-elected by the students in his Sheffield constituency. No, it’s much too far fetched.

First published at 11:30, Monday, 18 June 2012
Published by http://www.newsandstar.co.uk