Clegg, Nick

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Nick Clegg (Nicholas William Peter Clegg), 1967–, British politician, grad. Cambridge (M.A., 1989), College of Europe, Bruges, Belgium (M.A., 1992). Of British, Russian, and Dutch descent, he worked for the European Commission (1994–99) before he entered politics. A Liberal Democrat, he served in the European Parliament from 1999 to 2004 and was elected to the British parliament in 2005. In 2007 he became party leader of the Liberal Democrats. After the 2010 parliamentary elections, in which no party won a majority, he led his party into a coalition government with the Conservative party—Britain's first coalition government since the 1940s—and became deputy prime minister (2010–15). In 2015, however, the party suffered large losses, and he resigned as party leader.