Clegg was born in 1967, and studied social anthropology at Cambridge and afterwards continued his post graduate studies at the University of Minnesota and the College of Europe in Bruges.

He worked for five years for the European Commission. In 1999 he was elected Member of the European Parliament for the East Midlands -- the first liberal Parliamentarian in the region since the 1930s.

Clegg was elected as Member of Parliament for Sheffield Hallam in 2005 and leader of the Liberal Democrats in December 2007 after a leadership campaign in which he focused on reaching out beyond the party to new voters.