The Times calls her “the Great Dane of Brussels”. To the Independent she’s “the Harry Kane of the EU”. She’s the real-life inspiration for Prime Minister Birgitte Nyborg from the TV show ‘Borgen’. Now, fresh from coolly levying a record-breaking £4bn fine on Google for abusing its market dominance over Android users, EU Competition Commissioner MARGRETHE VESTAGER talks to Nick Clegg about power, populism, what makes the EU tick, and how technology could provide a way out of the present deadlock of resentment and rage.

For this season finale of ANGER MANAGEMENT, Nick journeys into the heart of the European project to the Berlaymont (where he used to be an intern, trivia fans) for an uplifting vision of where Europe could be going… with or without the UK.

“There’s a reason why the EU is probably the best place on Earth to live in history – especially if you’re a woman,” Margarethe tells him. “It’s a stable, safe place because we respect the individual. It’s human scale. We matter. You matter. And because you matter, it matters what you do.”

ANGER MANAGEMENT WITH NICK CLEGG will return in the autumn. 

Margrethe Vestager on populists: “One of the things I hate about populists is, very often they hate other people. When responsibility comes round, they’re not to be found…”

On Brexit: “I’m happily married but I’ve discovered that if you bitch a little every day, you end up divorced.” 

“A lot of people have put a lid on their sorrow – because Brexit is now a job you have to do. But underneath it is a very sad state of emotion.”

“The problems around us, they become the work that we have to do. But the world itself is a wonderful place.”

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is created by Podmasters, producers of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs. Producer: Andrew Harrison. Audio production: Sophie Black. Music by Jon Luc Heffernan used under Creative Commons licence. Photo: Paul Heartfield.

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Few politicians have dealt with weightier global issues, or dealt with more devastating personal tragedy, than JOE BIDEN, two-term Vice President to Barack Obama. As a young senator in 1972 he lost his first wife and his daughter in a car crash. During his second term as Vice President, his son Beau succumbed to brain cancer aged only 46.

On the latest edition of ANGER MANAGEMENT WITH NICK CLEGG, Joe Biden speaks movingly about how to deal with unimaginable loss without lapsing into despair. He talks about where the rage that now defines our political climate comes from, and how to fight it. And he warns that America’s current attitude to friends and allies is imperilling its influence as a global force for good. “The world responds to America not because of the example of our power,” he says, “but the power of our example.”

This conversation between Nick Clegg and Joe Biden took place at the Copenhagen Democracy Summit at the Royal Danish Playhouse, Copenhagen, Denmark on 22 June 2018.

“Character is not made up of one big decision. It’s a thousand little decisions. If you lie to the waiter, you’re going to lie to me someday.”

On the separation of migrant children from their parents: “It makes me feel shame. I really mean that. I’m proud of the response the American people have shown. This is is not America. We are not as good as we believe we are – but we are much better than this.”

“Right now America is sending a signal that is so damaging to our ability to be a positive force in the world. Praising Duerte, praising Putin, praising Kim Jong-Un? What are we doing?”

On ‘Promise Me, Dad’, the book on the aftermath of his sons’ death: “I wanted it to be about redemption. To give people hope. If you can find purpose after loss, it’s your way to deal with that loss. And internalise the good part of what you’ve lost.”

On Brexit: “America’s ability to meet our responsibilities around the world rests upon a Europe that is whole, free and at peace. It is the platform that allows us to maintain our security. We badly need Europe whole, free, at peace – and united.”

On the aftermath of Brexit: “I think we‘ve got to have a period of saying ‘OK, you want a bite out of that apple? How‘s it taste? What's going on? How do you feel about that?‘“

On Britain potentially leaving the EU: “I was really disappointed in terms of US interests. If we had any voice in Europe, it was you. I was not surprised, because in times of confusion and great change I think we all become susceptible to demagogues and charlatans who in order to aggrandise their power find a scapegoat.”

On the future: “Right now there’s pace on the ball. Turnout is up among Democrats and Independents. Republicans are disillusioned. There is a sense that, damn it, I’m taking this country back. And I think you’re going to see it in your country too.”

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is created by Podmasters, producers of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs. Producer: Andrew Harrison. Studio production: Sophie Black. Music by Jon Luc Heffernan used under Creative Commons licence. Photo: Paul Heartfield.

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Britain and the United States are not the only political systems to be rocked by the forces of populism. The convulsions of the past few years have left Italian politics unrecognisable. So where do we go from here?

On the latest edition of ANGER MANAGEMENT, former Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi – Italy’s youngest-ever PM and head of the fourth longest-lasting government in Italian history – talks to Nick Clegg about his country’s present and future. Showing a rare sense of humour in a senior politician, he recounts the experiences that shaped him, explains where anger is leading Italian politics, and tells us how populism’s strengths are also its weaknesses.

“When I was a boy, if you were a good footballer you became a player. If you weren’t a good player you became a referee. So I became a referee. But if you weren’t a good referee, you became a politician. So I became Prime Minister…”

“Italy is a chaotic country. But from the chaos we get our creativity.”

“I’m in the same club as David Cameron — the club that’s against referendums. He lost his job after a Referendum in Britain, and I lost mine after one in Italy.”

“In politics, you decide something today — and you don’t discover the consequences for many years. It’s hard to see what will happen to the UK. And when it does, people might not remember the real reasons why.”

“The best way to defeat populism is time. Time is the thing that shows false promises to be wrong.”

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is created by Podmasters, producers of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs. Producer: Andrew Harrison. Studio production: Sophie Black. Music by Jon Luc Heffernan used under Creative Commons licence. Photo: Paul Heartfield.

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Can art defeat fascism? In the latest edition of ANGER MANAGEMENT, award-winning author, columnist and women’s rights activist Elif Shafak talks to Nick about the seductive dangers of sameness, how Western countries’ greatest weakness was our belief that we’d won all the big battles… and how we’ll never turn back the tide of anger until we understand where it comes from.

“This is an age of emotions,” Elif tells Nick, “and emotions are guiding and misguiding politics. In an age of anger we need to increase our emotional intelligence.”

Born in Strasbourg and raised in Ankara, Madrid, Amman and Istanbul, the self-declared “linguistic nomad” Elif Shafak is one of the world’s most influential writers, and the widest-read female writer in Turkey. In her non-fiction work and her ten acclaimed novels – including The Architect's Apprentice and The Bastard of Istanbul – she looks at identity, feminism and LGBT and women’s rights.  

“Countries can go backwards. Generations can make the same mistakes that previous generations did. But if we can learn anything, we will learn it from people who are not like us.”

“Populist demagogues tell us we will be safer if we’re surrounded by sameness. That is a lie.”

“If you’re a novelist from a non-democracy — or a wounded democracy like Turkey or Russia — you do not have the luxury of being non-political.”

“The opposite of kindness and goodness isn’t evil, it’s numbness. What art does is rehumanise those people we’ve been told are not human.” 

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is created by Podmasters, producers of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs. Producer: Andrew Harrison. Studio production: Sophie Black.

Music by Jon Luc Heffernan, used under Creative Commons licence.

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Anger cuts both ways. It can destroy you and the people around you – or it can drive you onwards. In the latest edition of ANGER MANAGEMENT WITH NICK CLEGG, longest-serving female MP, Mother of the House and former Labour Deputy Leader Harriet Harman explains how anger against injustice and institutionalised bias has given her the energy to keep fighting.

Have we ignored the voices of popular anger for too long – or are we letting the voices of rage set the agenda too much? What sort of popular anger will ensue if Jeremy Corbyn enables a Tory hard Brexit? And what was the ‘Night of the Mustard Yellow Corduroys?’ All this and more in Nick Clegg’s fascinating conversation with one of the most dogged fighters in the Commons.

“We shouldn’t regard it as sign of weakness when MPs report death threats or threats of violence. We should look on it as an attack on democracy. Nobody should have to look over their shoulder.”

“During the Referendum it was dismaying that I’d campaign with my LABOUR IN badge next to my Labour rosette — and people would say, But I thought Labour was in favour of leaving?”

“Once my mother had achieved the ‘lofty ambition’ of marrying my father, her lawyer’s wig and gown literally went into our dressing up box. That was the way the world was in the 1950s.”

“The thing with Cameron and the EU Referendum is, you shouldn’t ever put in your manifesto something that you know you’ll never want to do.”

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is created by Podmasters, producers of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs. Producer: Andrew Harrison. Studio production: Sophie Black.

Music by Jon Luc Heffernan used under Creative Commons licence.

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If you want to see rage ruining everything, go and listen to some of the dads on the touchline at a kids’ football match. On the new episode of ANGER MANAGEMENT WITH NICK CLEGG, the former Deputy Prime Minister talks to footballing legend and Match Of The Day presenter GARY LINEKER about anger on the football pitch and in the public eye, Gary’s personal politics… and what it’s like to be monstered for speaking your mind on social media.

Where did Gary’s political interests come from? What drives people to be so vitriolic towards strangers on the Internet? Is football really getting calmer while the society around it gets angrier? As a dedicated Remainer, does he think there’s a way to heal the Brexit breach? And who would he like to be stuck in a lift with?

“I’m lucky in that I don’t get angry. But unfortunately the really negative, abusive remark is the one that sticks in your head.”

“The press have the right to their opinions, of course they do. But they don’t have the right to demand that you lose your job for yours.”

“I’ve got a huge platform, seven million people. It’s bonkers. And some of those people really won’t like you. That’s OK – but what I don’t understand is the vitriol.”

“One of my pet hates in life is parental touchline behaviour… My dad walked onto the pitch once, when I was about 14. Not to have a go at the referee but to give ME a bollocking because I’D had a go at the referee…”

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is created by Podmasters, producers of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs. Producer: Andrew Harrison. Studio production: Sophie Black.

Music by Jon Luc Heffernan used under Creative Commons licence. Photo: Paul Heartfield.

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In an age of rage vs. reason, how to we make sure reason comes out on top? On this week’s episode of ANGER MANAGEMENT WITH NICK CLEGG, the former Deputy Prime Minister reconnects with his old Cabinet sparring partner and Coalition frenemy GEORGE OSBORNE – once Chancellor of the Exchequer, now editor of the Evening Standard, firm opponent of Brexit and helpful supplier of constructive criticism to the current Prime Minister (of whom he is famously fond).

How is anger driving our day-to-day politics? What are the Tories getting wrong in “running against metropolitan Britain”? How is the BBC failing us – and should Facebook be regulated? On the less intense side, Nick finds out which way George Osborne’s mother voted in the last General Election… what happened the first time he met “alien species” Jacob Rees-Mogg… and who the former Chancellor would most like to be stuck in a lift with. 

“You don’t heal the nation by saying ‘we hear you but we’re not going to pay any attention to you’.”

"Facebook should be subject to similar regulations that I face editing a newspaper, as to what you can and can't publish. There's a reason why those laws exist.”

“There’s a naive view in parts of the Conservative Party of ‘let's just get Brexit done and then we can talk about housing or social mobility or whatever…’ That is not the case. This is a massive shock to the British political system. We’re still going to be talking about Brexit in 15 years’ time.” 

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is created by Podmasters, producers of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs. Producer: Andrew Harrison. Studio production: Sophie Black with a little help from Jack Claramunt.

Music by Jon Luc Heffernan used under Creative Commons licence. Photo: Paul Heartfield.

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Are we living in an Age of Rage? On the first episode of ANGER MANAGEMENT WITH NICK CLEGG, the former deputy prime minister talks to Nigel Farage, former Ukip leader and one of the most divisive figures in British political history. A wave of populist anger carried the EU referendum for the Leave side – but what happens now?

What shaped Nigel Farage’s ideas? Does anger drive his politics, or something deeper? And why does he love chaos? ”Chuka Umunna said the other day that we had stolen [young] people's future from them,” he tells Nick Clegg in a remarkable 45-minute conversation. ”Well I very much hope we have.”

“In 1945 one country lost World War 2. It was us.”

“My politics has not been based on anger. It has been based on frustration.”

“The young people look about the European Union as being this bright shiny future… Nick, they will change their minds.”

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is created by Podmasters, producers of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs. Producer: Andrew Harrison. Studio production: Sophie Black.

Music by Jon Luc Heffernan used under Creative Commons licence. Photo: Paul Heartfield.

@nick_clegg

openreason.uk

© 2018 Nick Clegg/Podmasters

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We live in angry times. What are rage, resentment, partisanship and distrust doing to our world? Former Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg talks to figures from across the political spectrum to discover where popular anger is taking us. Is rage the opposite of reason? And how do we get reason back on top? 

Nick talks to Nigel Farage in episode one of Anger Management, out on Thur 19 April via audioboom.com and key podcast platforms.

Follow Nick on Twitter and tell us who you’d like to see on Anger Management.

Anger Management with Nick Clegg is produced by Podmasters, creators of the hit Brexit podcast Remainiacs.

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