Cleggover and male bonking

I am surprised at the fuss over Nick Clegg's interview in GQ where he says that he has discussed Ugandan affairs with some 30 people in his life so far.

My own figure is probably something of the same order, as far as I can remember after all these years.

Surely this is pretty unexceptional for most men? (Hughie Green, played brilliantly by Trevor Eve in a BBC4 biopic last night, is supposed to have slept with 1,000 women).

According to an article in yesterday's Grauniad, a 2005 survey in Canada found that men reported an average of 31.9 partners.

One expects Anne Widdecombe to be shocked, of course, but she has always been completely out of touch with reality, and barking to boot. Those of us who inhabit the real world must know that Clegg's figure is quite normal, and therefore the shock being professed in some quarters, such as this piece by Amanda Platell, is just hypocrisy.

Thank goodness, then, for Catherine Townsend, who in a piece called Sleeping Around in today's Indie tells us that her own figure is "between 60 and 100", and believes her experiences make her a better partner. She adds:

It seems that the people bleating the loudest about everyone else's morality are either seriously repressed or hiding sexual skeletons.

Whether any politician is wise to answer this sort of question in the first place, whatever the figure might be, is a different question, discussed here by Steve Richards, who finds that other commentators think it was a seriously unwise move.