![]() I'd like to be so good at everything that all around school I'd be known as Flash." I'd like to be real athletic so that everybody would call me Flash. "I've always wanted to be called Flash," he says. It reminds me of a heartbreaking Peanuts comic strip in which Charlie Brown, in a rare moment of unguarded candour, tells Lucy he wishes he had a better nickname. The trouble is that apart from Clegg, no one's talking about Alarm Clock Britain (unless, like me, they're mocking him in print), so his attempt to seed this spectacularly meaningless catchphrase into the national conversation merely comes across as desperate. NICKELODEON ALARM CLOCK TVHe even managed to slip it into TV interviews, telling BBC News that he could understand why "the people of what I like to call Alarm Clock Britain" are pissed off about bankers' bonuses (not that he promised to actually do anything about it – one of the benefits of aligning yourself with an indistinct cluster of people is that claiming to feel their pain is often enough). Students, for instance, are notorious for waking up late, so they're definitely excluded, which is just as well since the average student trusts Clegg about as much as I'd trust a hammock made of gas.Īnyway, Clegg goes on to pepper the phrase Alarm Clock Britain throughout the rest of the article as often as he can, as though it's some kind of transformative mantra, in the apparent belief that the more he repeats it, the more we'll identify with it. Which is not to say Alarm Clock Britain is an amorphous group with no boundaries whatsoever. ![]() We are yet to discover Clegg's stance on Toothbrush Britain (Britons who use toothbrushes), or Bum Wipe Britain (Britons who use toilet paper), or Newtonian Physics Britain (Britons subjected to the law of gravity), but I think it's fair to assume he's on their side too. Still, it's undeniable that millions of Britons use alarm clocks, so it's nice to know someone at the heart of government is prepared to speak up on their behalf. There are millions of people in Scream Wake Britain, and approximately half of them voted for him. Which I guess makes me part of Scream Wake Britain – a demographic Clegg has chosen to ignore. That counts me out, because I wake each morning to the sound of my own despairing screams. "People, like Sun readers, who have to get up every morning and work hard to get on in life."īasically, Alarm Clock Britain consists of people who use alarm clocks. "There are millions of people in Alarm Clock Britain," Clegg writes. He's on the side of "Alarm Clock Britain", apparently. But despite claiming to be "clear about who that is", it's a group he defines in the vaguest, most frustrating terms possible – almost as if he doesn't really know what the hell he's going on about. Because Cleggsy Bear has someone else in mind. Who? Ethnic minorities? The poor? The disabled? The original lineup of Gerry and the Pacemakers? Beekeepers? Milkmen? Necrophiles? Yeomen? ![]() "Be in no doubt, I am clear about who that is." "Now more than ever, politicians have to be clear who they are standing up for," he writes. ![]()
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