“Lighten Up!” - Lib Dem Controversial Q & A Session

Campus controversy surrounded Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg when a gay student questioned the party’s “Homophobia is Gay” campaign.

At a question and answer session in the Students’ Union Council Chambers, Clegg defended himself by telling the student to “lighten up”. He insisted that the campaign’s ironic use of language was successful. The student then said that such advice was not likely to be light-heartedly accepted, and he went on to describe his own personal experience of homophobia.

Though welcomed by an unflatteringly vandalised promotional poster, Clegg invited more questions from a packed floor to see what students had to say.

He tackled issues that ran the gamut from the environment to “the firestorm in financial markets,” admitting personal woes about “food prices and paying off the mortgage.”

“Power has been privatised,” he said, referring to the claim that big companies influence politics with party contributions. Although, when faced with a question about Lib Dem donations, he said: “I haven’t the faintest idea where our donations come from. I don’t have big business backers like the Conservatives nor trade union backers like Labour.”

Clegg was confronted by the issue of higher education in light of his party’s recent abandoning its opposition to tuition fees. The audience was informed that the Lib Dems are currently reviewing their education policies and are “committed to students,” arguing that “there are more inequities for students in further education than in higher education.”

John Leech, Liberal MP for Withington, was also in attendance. Further controversy arose when he took the opportunity to talk about a letter sent to Elizabeth Somerville, last year’s Students’ Union Women’s Officer, which appeared to claim that noisy students prevent rape victims being heard.

“[Somerville] failed to contact me. My letter was completely misconstrued, and to take it to the press was an abuse of trust,” said Leech.

Clegg returned repeatedly to the assessment that it was critical for Westminster to reconnect with the public and stated: “We are really living in quite dangerous times. It is in that apocalyptic context that I want to meet as many people as I can.”