Not only is Clegg, who turned 41 last week, the youngest of the major party leaders, but he also has something of a blot on his copybook, which may endear him to the younger generation. The 16-year-old Clegg was arrested along with a friend in Munich, Germany, for setting fire to rare cacti belonging to a professor, and sentenced to community service digging gardens.
"I got into trouble, as I think a lot of teenagers do," Clegg admits. "I was no angel. A lot of boys and girls in their teenage years will sail close to the wind at times. The big question is, why do some children in that phase of development go right overboard? The criminal justice system does not help. We have a system which is so very penal, from Asbos to the targeting of youth crime, which has sucked a lot of children into the criminal justice system when we want to keep them out of it."
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