Clegg may have gift of the gab, but...

The Sheffield Hallam MP has spoken of the “perils” of the task after meeting the Prime Minister of France recently.

While Mr Clegg was presented with a “beautiful” bottle of Armagnac from 1967, the year of Mr Clegg’s birth, with his name inscribed on the label, all he had to offer Francois Fillon was a box of Kendal Mint Cake.

And he admitted it was not his first faux pas on the gift-buying front. Mr Clegg also revealed he had gone shopping in Sheffield to buy US Vice President Joe Biden a beer tankard along with some beer brewed in the city before the pair met last year.

But he later discovered that the Vice President is teetotal so had to return to the shop to buy his wife a bracelet instead.

“I’m now living in fear he will think the bracelet is for him,” he said.