Nick Clegg: Britain's Obama?

Who is the little-known British politician whose performance in a leadership debate has galvanized the country's general election? Everything you need to know about Nick Clegg

Nick Clegg.
(Image credit: Getty)

The British electorate will go to the polls May 6, and one man has revitalized a race beset by cynicism with the political system. Not Gordon Brown, the prime minister, nor his Conservative rival, David Cameron, but Nick Clegg — leader of the left-leaning Liberal Democrats, Britain's third party. Clegg's superlative performance in the U.K.'s first-ever leaders' debate earlier this month saw him surge in the polls, and prompted critics on both sides of the Atlantic to compare him to Barack Obama. "You can feel it in the air," says Oliver Burkeman in the Guardian. "The fierce urgency of Nick; the audacity of Clegg." Is he really "The British Obama" — and could he be the next prime minister? (Watch the BBC tongue-in-cheekly apologize for its treatment of Nick Clegg)

Who is Nick Clegg?

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