Cambridge blue - did Nick Clegg once join the Tory party?

Nick Clegg did not seem to mind telling Piers Morgan that he had slept with "no more than 30" women. But owning up to having been a member of the Conservative party? Some secrets are apparently just too shameful ....

Clegg was at Cambridge with Greg Hands, the Tory MP for Hammersmith, and Hands told the Daily Telegraph yesterday that he had found Clegg's name on a college membership list for the Cambridge University Conservative Association for 1986/87. There was only one N Clegg in the college at the time, Hands said.

Clegg's spokesman told the Telegraph: "Nick is 100% adamant that this isn't true."

But today Hands has posted the evidence on ConservativeHome. You can read it here.

Clegg's name is in the column for first-year students. There is a thick line through his name because Hands was using the list during an election in 1987/88 and by then Clegg was no longer a member.

Hands, who was the CUCA college secretary at Robinson College, says that he does not remember Clegg being politically active. But he remembers Clegg being a member, because as college secretary Hands had to post CUCA literature in Clegg's pigeonhole.

At university it's not unusual for students to sign up for clubs without being particularly committed to them. It's been claimed the Ed Balls joined the Oxford Conservative Association, as well as the Labour Club, just because he wanted to hear Conservative speakers, and Hands thinks Clegg might have joined CUCA for similar reasons.

"He probably signed up out of wider interest, although I note that he does not seem to have joined the Liberals or the SDP at Cambridge," said Hands, who has checked with contemporaries involved in both rival associations.

Checking with the SDP was particularly easy. The SDP chair at the time was Greg Clark, now the Tory MP for Tunbridge Wells.

Faced with the evidence, Clegg is still not owning up. But he does not seem "100% adamant" any more. This morning his spokesman said: "Nick has never been a member of the Conservative party. He has no recollection whatsoever of ever having joined CUCA and he does not know how is his name is on the list."

During last year's Lib Dem leadership contest some of Chris Huhne's supporters claimed that Clegg had a Conservative past. He denied it, although it is true that he worked as an adviser to Leon Brittan when Brittan was a European commissioner.

In normal circumstances this would not matter very much. But with a hung parliament increasingly likely, and Westminster already speculating about who the Lib Dems would support in the event of no party having an overall majority, Clegg's preferences could turn out to be extremely important.

Clegg has already been identified as the first Lib Dem leader who is not inherently pro-Labour, and I've written about that before here.

According to John Rentoul in the Independent today, David Cameron and George Osborne are also taking a very keen interest in what might happen in the event of a hung parliament.

Clegg seems to find this all embarrassing and now he has another reason to wish he had never given that interview to Piers Morgan.

Apparently, the Telegraph's Jonathan Isaby only contacted Hands in the first place because he thought he might have more to say about the Lib Dem leader's 30 lovers.

If you were at Cambridge with Clegg and can shed any more light on his political allegiances, do please feel free to comment.

Update, Wednesday April 16

As some readers have pointed out, being a member of Cambridge University Conservative Association (CUCA) isn't the same as being a member of the Conservative party. To stand for office in CUCA, you had to be a party member. But many ordinary members did not join the party. So when Clegg's office said on Tuesday that he had never been a member of the Conservative party, there's no reason not to believe him. Sorry for not making that clear earlier.