English-Clegg Phrasebook

In the restaurant...
A very good day to you, sir. Could I please have the duck salad to begin with, and then for main... the beef en croûte sounds delicious! I'll have that! And can we have a bottle of the white Zinfandel?

Hello. I'll have a starter, please, followed by a main course. And can I have a drink to go with that?

I'd like the apple and plum crumble, with an espresso and a large Cognac, please.

A dessert, please, and two drinks.


At home...
You do the cleaning and hoovering, love, I'll pick a few things up at random in the living room and pile them up on the coffee table.

I shall certainly contribute to the ongoing effort to keep our home clean and tidy.

I'd rather not tonight. To be perfectly honest, I can't stand to be around you anymore and every time you touch me it feels like spiders. And I'm having an affair with Siobhan!

I would like nothing more than to engage in acts of torrid carnality with the woman I love.


To the crowd of demonstrators outside the Liberal Democrat meeting...
The electoral reform that has been central to our party's ideology since its inception was never realistically going to happen, now, was it? So I'll just decide which alliance will last longer before collapsing in on itself and sell our support to the relevant party in return for a weak promise of a cross-party inquiry into proportional representation and a few flaccid compromises on some of our less controversial policies. But jolly good show! Don't give up! Keep doing our work for us and one day, perhaps, one fine day far, far into the future, long after you and your children, and your children's children, and their children and grandchildren have all died... perhaps then our descendants may be lucky enough to see a system in place whereby British citizens can elect people to represent them in parliament. Don't let anyone tell you it can't happen. It can.

The fact that you are here because you care so much about political reform is absolutely wonderful. Take it from me, reforming politics is one of the reasons I went into politics. I've campaigned for a better, more open, more transparent, new politics, every single day of this general election campaign. I genuinely believe it is in the national interest. I take your petition in the spirit in which I am sure you meant to deliver it - in a spirit of change, of real change, in the politics of this country. And in return, I would ask you to do what you are doing so well here today in Smith Square in every street and every community of our country, to continue your campaign for a different, better, new politics.