Nick Clegg needs a proper holiday

The deputy prime minister, world-weary and grey, looked deflated at the despatch box. Perhaps he is in need of a break - somewhere a little chilly perhaps, to restore some colour to his cheeks.

By Hannah Brenton

The gaffes have been mounting at Clegg's doorstep over recent weeks. First it emerged his office did not accept requests after 3pm. Then he told the Metro he "forgot" he was running the country while David Cameron toured the Middle East.

Finally, to make matters worse, he then went on a skiing holiday as the Libyan crisis escalated. Just as he was beginning to relax, he was forced to cut his reak short and rush back to Blighty to help deal with the Libya crisis.

Clegg appeared well aware in the Commons yesterday that these moments were going to come back and haunt him. The Liberal Democrat leader braced himself for a torrent of skiing puns - and Labour backbenchers were only too happy to oblige.

Before the very first question there were murmurs of "Switzerland" coming from the Labour backbenches. Labour MP Roberta Blackman-Woods, who spent most of the ensuing 30 minutes giggling into her hand, began the first flurry by asking the Lib Dem leader whether a law allowing the electorate to recall MPs who break their promises would involve. "how many Lib Dems?"

Clegg, brow furrowed, responded that only "serious wrongdoing" would result in a recall. Whoosh! Back he slid to the bottom of the slope as Labour MPs erupted in guffaws. But the deputy prime minister had not finished feeding the frenzy just yet. "If we have a free-for-all we'll get a lot of vexatious claims," he added.

By now, only very shortly into the proceedings, the Labour backbenches were in a rounded state of jollity. It could have been refresher course, a day of light jesting, as the Lib Dem leader's every pronouncement was met with further jeers.

In contrast, Clegg was having a horrible time. Like a knock-kneed child blindly fending off a group of playground attackers, his every answer only increased the sense of suffering.

He could not even say "I support the prime minister on a wide range of issues" without the Labour backbenches erupting.

"In the end I went for two short days, two working days, and as soon as it became apparent I was needed here, I returned," he mumbled.

"SORRY!" stormed Labour. "Too many," yelled an MP.

Clegg trudged on, through the ever-mounting objections barring his path. "There is no money", he said twice, "as the ex-Labour chief of the secretary said".

Then John Mann rose, stared frostily in Mr Clegg's direction and declared: "He is the first deputy prime minister in British history to have failed to show up for work when the PM was away. My question is what's the point of Nick Clegg?"

Clegg almost closed his eyes - perhaps he was imagining a remote cabin with a wintery log fire and a glass of brandy to steady his nerves.

"I only sigh," he said, "because of the laborious way in which these questions are being asked". He then listed a rather laboriously prepared list of jobs titles that are not passed on when the person in charge is away. "A chief executive is still a chief executive," he blustered.

By now, the puns were coming thick and fast, a veritable blizzard. Jack Dromey asked if a Birmingham city councillor was on a "slippery slope". Every time the deputy prime minister inched away from his tormentors, a new band of snowballs were at the ready to knock the wind out of him once more.

Shadow Cabinet members lined up to take a swipe. Sadiq Khan referred to Mr Clegg as a "busy hardworking deputy prime minister", while Harriet Harman quipped, "At least today it hasn't slipped his mind that he's deputy prime minister". "There's a new term for someone who's the victim of a total sell-out", she said. "They've been Clegg-ed."

Over the noise he persevered, but as a man standing at the bottom of a mountain, yelling loudly as the snowball behind him picks up pace.

A tropical getaway might be the ticket. Somewhere to take his mind off pressing issues, perhaps Papua New Guinea or Australia. I hear they have a rather interesting voting system.