Clegg accused of putting his feet up with 3.0 sign-off

Is Nick Clegg falling apart under the strain of being deputy prime minister in a coalition government - failing to appease angry Lib Dem members who believe he sold out, tiring of the abuse from the Labour benches?

That's the suspicion after the leaking to today's Sunday Telegraph of an extraordinary note sent out by Clegg's office which says, in effect, that he will not accept any further government work after three in the afternoon.

It gets worse. A Lib Dem "colleague" (with colleagues this, who needs enemies?) told the paper: "Nick is a bit fragile, and needs lots of rest and time off. He needs to take regular breaks and we all need to look after him."

The Sunday Telegraph claims to know the civil servant in Clegg's office who leaked the memo, but has agreed not to reveal the bounder's identity.

The memo he or she leaked reads simply: "DPM'S BOX CLOSES @ 15.00 ON MONDAY -THURSDAY AND 12.00 ON FRIDAY."

The "box" refers to the red box every Cabinet minister has at their side, and which is in effect a mobile in-tray. As we know from Yes, Minister, it's where secretaries and assistants pile in Cabinet papers that need reading, letters that need signing, speeches that need rewriting, and kindly notes reminding them that it's their partner's birthday tomorrow.

The norm is for a minister to read the papers at night, possibly even in bed after attending an evening function. Famously, civil servants will slip the most awkward papers in at the bottom, hoping the minister will sign them as they nod off.

The fact that Clegg feels 3.0 pm is a reasonable time to cut off is, on the face of it, astounding. Not surprisingly, his opponents are already piling in.

"While the rest of Britain is asked to do more for less, and while so many people are losing their jobs or seeing their living standards eroded, Nick Clegg seems to be clocking off after lunch and putting his feet up," says Labour MP Michael Dugher, claiming he has never heard of a government member finishing official business so early.

At only 44 - his birthday was on January 7 - Clegg might be expected to show a little more energy. Maggie Thatcher's long-serving deputy, Willie Whitelaw, took on the job at age 60 and lasted 10 years in the post; Tony Blair's number two, John Prescott, was 59 when he took on the role and he, too, did it for 10 years.

But is that the point? One astute Westminster watcher I spoke to this morning felt it wasn't laziness at all - but another sign that Clegg and Cameron have together opened up a new era in politics. They don't intend to kill themselves doing it, they are both wealthy enough to sidestep out of it whenever they wish, and, crucially, they both appear to genuinely enjoy their roles as modern fathers, and are not just promoting their families for political gain.

Clegg, interviewed on Desert Island Discs last year, said he had "failed utterly" to get his work-family balance right and was putting too much pressure on his wife, a full-time lawyer. "I'm racking up a lot of debt towards Miriam in the amount of forbearance she shows towards me."

And when Clegg enthusiastically proposed earlier this month that fathers should be entitled to paid paternity leave of up to 10 months, he may have had business leaders choking on their cigars, but he had the full backing of David Cameron.

Even Alastair Campbell has expressed his admiration for the new regime's more relaxed attitude to running the country. "I think they've learnt the right lesson," he said in a recent Times interview to promote his new diaries. It was "perfectly sensible", he said, for Cameron to take the odd evening off. ·