Nick Clegg has said he will never allow his children to be photographed or filmed by the media as he is determined to ensure they have an innocent childhood.
The deputy prime minister said he and his wife, Miriam González Durántez, had turned down the chance to live in a “great fancy” Whitehall flat to ensure their family could continue to lead a normal life.
Clegg spoke about how he tries to protect his children, after Ed Miliband allowed the BBC to film his two young boys on their scooters as their parents went for a walk in a local park. At one point one of the boys joked about how his father never stops working.
The deputy prime minister said he took a different approach, though he insisted he was not criticising the Labour leader. Speaking on his LBC phone-in show, Clegg said: “You might catch glimpses of my kitchen, you certainly – I hope – will catch sight of Miriam. You will never catch sight of my children.
“I am not making oblique criticism of David Cameron or Ed Miliband. I have always felt very, very strongly that my children are entitled to an innocent childhood just as much as any other kids. We still live in the home that we did before I became deputy prime minister. We didn’t take up the invitation, or the suggestion, to move into a great fancy flat behind the battlements of Downing Street or Whitehall.
“The reason we have done that is because, much though I will talk all day long with pride about my three little lovely boys – I am completely besotted by them – I don’t want them when they go to school to suddenly have someone sitting next to them saying ‘I saw you on telly’. It makes them feel different.”
