It is the most power a liberal politician has had since the 1920s, although Nick Clegg's hopes of becoming only the second liberal politician in almost a century to run the country have been rather set back by David Cameron's insistence that he will remain in charge from his Cornish holiday bolthole.
As deputy prime minister, the Liberal Democrat leader might have expected to follow his predecessors, John Prescott and Harriet Harman, in taking the reins of power today, albeit for just a fortnight in the dog days of August. But his senior coalition partner is not quite ready to let him follow in the footsteps of David Lloyd George just yet. From this morning Clegg might be the most senior working politician in the country but there will be no moving into No 10 and he will stay in his suite of offices at 70 Whitehall instead. "The PM remains in charge but while he's on holiday Nick will be around and picking up some events," a Downing Street spokesman said.
Nevertheless, the next fortnight represents the most power a Liberal has had in Britain since Lloyd George stood down in 1922. Clegg will kick off with a "virtual" town hall event at the headquarters of the instant messaging company MSN and address rallies in Sheffield, Newcastle and Bristol as he tries to regain support which has slumped since his party decided to share power with the Conservatives. He is likely to announce the appointment, already leaked, of Alan Milburn, the Labour politician, to be a "social mobility tsar".
It is a far cry from Lloyd George's agenda which involved winning the first world war, establishing a new international order at the Paris peace conference of 1919 and founding the welfare state.
