Thursday 22 May 2014 A sixth form student at The Grammar School at Leeds (GSAL) was stunned to emerge from an exam and find that the deputy prime minister had dropped into school for an impromptu question time. Nadav Winehouse, who is studying politics as one of his four AS-level subjects, had tweeted Nick Clegg to invite him to school but assumed his invitation was lost among many. Unknown to Nadav, Mr Clegg’s aides contacted the school’s politics department, and unsuspecting sixth form students were summoned on the pretext of a revision session. Nadav said: “Mr Clegg did a Q&A on Twitter a few weeks ago, and I asked him in but thought he wasn’t coming. When he arrived I couldn’t believe it was happening – I was expecting someone from the exam board!” Opening the Q&A, Mr Clegg said he was keen to find out what is important to the students, who despite having very little time to consider the issues asked him some probing questions on a wide range of topics. Mr Clegg fielded questions ranging from Mr Gove’s education reforms, the imminent European elections, Britain’s position in the EU and a possible referendum, tuition fees and the housing market to the threat from UKIP and whether he regretted going into coalition. Nadav said: “I thought Mr Clegg addressed all our questions well, showing that he is passionate about politics; he clearly wants the Liberal Democrats to succeed and Europe to prevail.” Although Nadav isn’t old enough to vote in this month’s elections, he is looking forward to casting his vote for the first time at next year’s general election, and is already researching university politics courses for 2015. Mr Clegg, who was visiting Leeds on the final day of campaigning for the local and European elections, said after the Q&A that he was impressed by the range of questions from the “very articulate, interested youngsters.” General Sixth Form News
