Nick Clegg Wins Lib Dem Leadership

Nick Clegg has won the leadership, albeit barely, of the Lib Dems from Chris Huhne.

His biography reads as: educated at the fee-paying (this year, for boarders, £8,652 a term) Westminster school, a series of graduate degrees, then a FT journalist, then chief of staff to a European Commissioner, then a MEP, and now as the MP for Sheffield Hallam.

He's an insider, through and through.

At the start of the campaign, Jackie Ashley, of the Guardian, characterised Clegg this way:

"Clegg, unlike Huhne, looks and sounds like a Cameron-era Tory ... He's pretty and glossy, but very inexperienced and too rightwing for my taste. And aren't people saying we have enough young chaps in top jobs at Westminster who've done little outside politics just at the moment? ... Still, he's good on telly, he's energetic and has an air of authenticity and common sense about him. It's hard to believe the Lib Dems will pick anyone else."

During the campaign:

- Clegg opposed unilateral disarmanent, and he supported retaining the existing Trident system. So, another "grey" party leader who wants his finger on the nuclear button.

- Clegg wanted to "make it compulsory for airlines to put information detailing carbon emissions onto air tickets and onto web pages so that people can actually see the environmental impact before they purchase their flight." The obvious question is, will he only fly now, as leader, on airlines that do this?

Finally, a vote for Clegg or Huhne (such choice) is a vote for the Lib Dems to embrace the polices of their "Orange Book", a more free-market approach to policy orientation, from three years ago.