Published on Liberal Democrat Voice By Caron Lindsay | Sat 31st January 2015 – 11:40 am

I’m so glad I hadn’t watched The Last Leg ahead of Nick Clegg’s appearance last night. It would not have been good for my health because I’d have been worrying about how he’d fare in that pretty brutal, blokey environment. Don’t get me wrong, it’s hilarious, but a massive risk for a politician. Even the next morning, in the light of day and the absence of red wine goggles, I still think, as I did last night, that he did very well.

The press hasn’t been quite as sniffy about it as I’d thought, but it’s early. Many of his fiercest critics won’t have sharpened their keyboards yet. Funnily enough, the Daily Mail didn’t like it. Who’d ever have thought that would happen?

The Metro, though, was largely complimentary with a readers’ poll showing 94% of respondents saying he was hilarious.

If you agree with that assessment, why not give a donation to the party’s general election campaign? If you do so before midnight tonight, donors have pledged to double it. Mind you, if Mike Crockart learns his AM from his PM and we sort out the manufacturing and distribution process, we could have a nice little earner in BS Buttons.

The Independent really didn’t want to be complimentary but couldn’t help itself. The tweets quoted didn’t really reflect the rather sniffy headline.

And look who’s right at the top of this Huffington Post selection of tweets.

But how does Clegg now capitalise on last night’s success? Well, people liked him because he was natural and funny and entirely himself. No other political leader in Britain could have come out of that unscathed. If you  meet him in person, you have to be trying really hard to dislike him. It’s a pity we can’t get him onto 40 million doorsteps. The reach of this programme is much wider than it would have been a decade ago so encouraging people to watch it (available here) is important. I also suspect that those who watch Channel 4 late night Friday night comedy programme may be more receptive to the things we’ve done in government that break down barriers for people – things like giving extra money to disadvantaged kids in school, massive investment in apprenticeships and improving mental health care –  than talk of balancing the books. I said the other day that I felt he should put this stuff front and centre of what he’s saying and then go on to the balance the books fairly stuff. I shall leave the last word to Alex Brooker, whose love of Nandos Nick exploited to persuade him to vote:

There is also a clear lesson for Nick’s team, if they didn’t learn it from the Farage debates last year. Let him be himself. He’s not going to have as much space in the leaders’ debates. Don’t over-script him. Leave him to his own instincts. You could see the odd flash of “how the flip do I answer this?” in his eyes last night, but he got the tone and the substance pretty much bang on.

You can see The Last Leg with Nick Clegg on Channel 4’s On Demand service here.

* Caron Lindsay is Editor of Liberal Democrat Voice and blogs at Caron’s Musings