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By Sam Macrory - 26th October 2010
No-one likes him, but he doesn't seem to care.
And that's no bad thing: for Nick Clegg, a rhino-hide is pretty much essential fashion-wear.
His party remaining lower than comfortable in the polls, while his reaction to the spending-slashing of the comprehensive spending review was criticised for being insensitively enthusiastic.
Meanwhile Clegg is also forging new political ground as a Liberal Democrat politician who is more popular with Conservative voters than members of his own party.
He faces attacks from all political parties every time the deputy PM takes to the floor of the Commons.
No wonder he needs the occasional nicotine hit to get him through the day.
But if Clegg is feeling the stress, he is hiding it well, with his third outing at deputy prime minister's questions seeing the deputy prime flexing his muscles to impressive effect.
Chris Bryant was the first of a number of MPs to attack the government's housing benefit proposals. Unfortunately Bryant picked on a word with rather wide connotations: cleansing.
Clegg doing angry never really worked in the days when he stood on the Commons floor as a lone Lib leader with no Dispatch Box for cover; in his new position of power the rage seems a little more authentic.
Bryant was chastised for using a term that would "be deeply offensive to people who have witnessed ethnic cleansing in other parts of the world"; cue loud cheers from the government benches as Bryant's rants were lost in the noise.
Natascha Engel tried to frame the deputy leader as a hypocrite for supporting the coalition's opposition to lowering the voting age to 16.
"I happen to support votes at 16", Clegg unashamedly admitted, before explaining the necessary compromises of coalition.
When Anas Sarwar demanded an apology for his U-turn on tuition fees, Clegg confirmed that this had been "regrettable" before defending the policy and attacking Labour for introducing fees in the first place.
And when Harriet Harman demanded that Clegg accept that 500,000 private sector job losses would follow the 490,000 planned job cuts in the public sector, the deputy prime minister pointed her in the direction of the OBR's prediction that two million private sector jobs would be created.
Harman's cameo appearance suggests a deliberate Labour policy: the opposition's big hitters will drop by from their usual briefs - Harman is now shadow international development secretary – in an attempt to score hits when Clegg is appearing in the chamber.
But Clegg, symbolically flanked by his Lib Dems-in-government colleagues Danny Alexander, David Heath, and Chris Huhne, is seems to enjoy taking the fight to his Labour critics on the CSR's measures, while defending his constitutional visions to the doubters amongst his Conservative allies.
Meanwhile those in his own party who believe Clegg needs to make more of Liberal Democrat distinctiveness will be disappointed.
Clegg appears to have no problem in apologising for dropped policies and, in public at least, is happy to defend the government's controversial approach to welfare. Behind the scenes, suggests The Evening Standard's Paul Waugh, a different story may be being played out. Keeping the unhappy amongst his own rank out of the public eye is essential.
The attacks from Labour, or the Conservatives, won't stop any time soon though. For now, and probably for the next five years, the thickest of skins is essential clothing whenever the deputy prime minister braves the outside world.
Sam Macrory is political editor of The House Magazine.
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