Nick Clegg attacks wealthy families for leg up BUT daddy got him bank job

Nick Clegg yesterday admitted he got an internship at a bank through family connections when he left school.

The disclosure came as the Deputy Prime Minister launched a social mobility policy with an attack on the way internships go to "sharp elbowed" wealthy families.

Labour MP John Mann said Mr Clegg was guilty of "total hypocrisy" because he had closed off chances for working class youngsters by agreeing to rises in student fees. The Evening Standard's revelations led to Mr Clegg being heckled in the Commons this afternoon by Labour MPs.

Launching his policy, the Lib-Dem leader said earlier: "Unfair internships can rig the market in favour of those who already have opportunities. It should be about what you know, not who you know." But the Standard can reveal that he secured the first of three internships when his banker father "had a word" with a friend.

Mr Clegg worked at a Finnish bank unpaid for a brief period between leaving £10,000-a-term Westminster School and going to Cambridge. His spokesman said it was through "family connections", Mr Clegg's father Nicholas.

Mr Mann added: "It is total hypocrisy and really desperate for him to attack internships now. His policies are holding down social mobility in this country but he enjoyed all the advantages of family connections himself."

In many professions, a period as an intern, either unpaid, for minimal wages or just expenses, greatly increases an applicant's chances of winning a permanent job.

Speaking to the Standard, Mr Clegg said the disclosure did not change his determination to help people from less fortunate backgrounds. "I was fortunate enough to benefit from internships. I do not deny that I have been lucky but the plans I have set out today will help others from a much wider ranger of backgrounds to get the same opportunities I enjoyed." In the Commons, Labour shadow minister John Spellar asked him to confirm the Standard's disclosure that "his father's influence" helped him get an internship.

Labour MPs heckled when he replied: "I can. As a teenager I did receive it ... as I suspect did many people in this House." When Labour MPs shouted back "no we didn't", Mr Clegg added: "Very good for you if you didn't."

Harriet Harman told him: "I'm afraid you gave up the right to pontificate on social mobility when you abolished Educational Maintenance Allowance, trebled tuition fees and betrayed a generation of young people."

Source: London Evening Standard, Joe Murphy - Political Editor, 5th April 2011