Nick Clegg has said he feels “lobotomised” by working in government, with the “frenetic” pace of politics leaving him with no time to think.
Nick Clegg says he has been “gradually lobotomised” by frenetic pace of government. Photo: Paul Grover
7:48AM BST 04 Jul 2012
The Deputy Prime Minister said he felt he was “sort of gradually lobotomised” by the work of government, and the “sheer neurosis and weight of everyday activity”.
Speaking at a reception at liberal thinktank Centre Forum, he argued it was time to “think big” by coming up with new policies.
Admitting getting into Government meant “you stop thinking a bit, you stop looking into the middle horizon,” Mr Clegg said he had discovered the pitfalls of the role “like so many generations of politicians before me”.
He said: “One of the things that happens when you go into government is you are sort of gradually lobotomised by the sheer neurosis and weight of everyday government activity.”
BBC journalist Andrew Neil reported that his words caused senior Liberal Democrat Lord David Steel to have “rolled his eyes”.
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His frank admission inspired Conservative MP Zac Goldsmith to agree: “Nick Clegg feels lobotomised in Govt. MPs are lobotomised in Parliament.”
He later expanded: “An MP’s job descrip wd read simply: ‘hold Govt to acct on behalf of constituents.’ It rarely happens because Govt holds key to promotion.” (sic)
Gerry Sutcliffe, MP for Bradford South, added: “The country has clearly known for a long time. It is good that he has finally admitted it.”
Mr Clegg told an audience at Centre Forum: “I say this with feeling, as a politician who has discovered, like so many generations of politicians before me and no doubt after me, that one of the things that happens when you go into government is you are sort of gradually lobotomised by the sheer neurosis and weight of everyday government activity,.
“You stop thinking a bit, you stop looking into the middle horizon. Instead, your nose is pressed up against the windowpane of everyday frenetic activity. But if there ever was a time that we need to think big, it is now.”
A spokesman for the Deputy Prime Minister said he was making a point about how “we need to think big in these difficult economic times”.
He told a newspaper: “This was clearly a light-hearted remark at an informal gathering.
“He was making light of the difficulty of getting the balance right between the demands of everyday Government and thinking about the bigger picture.”
A lobotomy, once used as radical therapy for mental health conditions such a schizophrenia and bipolar disorder, involves severing the nerve pathways to a lobe or lobes of the brain.