The Clegg family have been writing a secret cookery blog for the last three years, the Deputy Prime Minister’s wife has revealed.
On www.mumandsons.com, Miriam Gonzalez Durantez and her three sons share recipes for a range of dishes, such as bean quesadillas, lemon curd muffins, and pasta with chorizo, among others.
The international trade lawyer let the cat out of the bag during an online chat with members of Mumsnet and admitted the disclosure was likely to get her in trouble.
She wrote: “I am careful at what I eat. I like cooking a lot and make the point of teaching my children to cook as well.
“I actually have a cooking blog with my children that I have been running with them for the last three years (when my husband’s advisers learn this they are going to freak out!).
“Since I am going to be told off for sharing this with you, just promise me that in exchange you will register at the Inspiring Women Campaign (I am going to be watching!).
“We only ask for one hour per year from every woman – everybody can do it! And I promise you it is a lot of fun.”
In the wide-ranging discussion, Ms Gonzalez Durantez also told mothers that her own has come over from Spain to help out at home during the election campaign and that her mother-in-law usually drops by one day a week.
She said that being married to Nick Clegg and seeing British politics so close up had been a “privilege” over the past five years.
She wrote: “I do not agree ‘at all’ with the victim complex that seems to be applied recently to some politicians and their families.
“If there are difficult times, we deal with them together as a family, as I suppose most families do. But I can guarantee you that most of what families of politicians go through is nothing in comparison to the issues that other families have to deal with.”
Asked which of Mr Clegg’s achievements she was proud of, she said the “stabilisation of the economy at a truly difficult economic time” and the pupil premium, adding: “This was the revolutionary education idea of the last five years, not free schools.”
She also defended her husband against the accusation that he had turned his back on his beliefs.
She wrote: “He was not elected Prime Minister. There was one promise (one) he could not get in the coalition negotiations. But he got every single policy in the front page of the LibDem manifesto. Every single one.
“Free tax allowance, shared parental leave, pupil premium, extended hours of childcare, the green investment bank, the bank levy, a record number of apprenticeships, putting mental health on the same level of importance as physical health… you tell me any other party that has done all that with just 56 MPs.”
Asked about SNP leader Nicola Sturgeon, she said she was glad to see more female politicians in this campaign compared to 2010.
But she added: “I am in favour of politicians who want to work for the whole country, not politicians who want to break the country apart.”