"Nick Clegg Says I'm Sorry (The Autotune Remix)", also shortened to "I'm Sorry", is a 2012 song created for the satirical website

The Poke The Poke is a British satirical website. It was launched in 2002 as a fanzine distributed at the Edinburgh Festival and independent music stores. The website is known for producing viral videos, which are often Auto-Tune edits of British current a ...

by music producer Alex Ross. The song is a remixed version of a video of

Nick Clegg Sir Nicholas William Peter Clegg (born 7 January 1967) is a British media executive and former Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom who has been president for global affairs at Meta Platforms since 2022, having previously been vicepr ...

(then

Deputy Prime Minister of the United Kingdom The deputy prime minister of the United Kingdom is a minister of the Crown and a member of the British Cabinet. The office is not always in use, and prime ministers may use other offices, such as First Secretary of State, to indicate the seni ...

) apologising for voting in favour of raising

tuition fees Tuition payments, usually known as tuition in American English and as tuition fees in English in the Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth English, are fees charged by education institutions for instruction or other services. Besides public spen ...

. The song reached number 143 in the

UK Singles Chart The UK Singles Chart (currently titled Official Singles Chart, with the upper section more commonly known as the Official UK Top 40) is compiled by the Official Charts Company (OCC), on behalf of the British record industry, listing the top-s ...

Background

In the 2010 general election, the Liberal Democrats stood on a platform of voting against any increase in university tuition fees and Clegg signed the National Union of Students'

Vote for Students pledge The National Union of Students (NUS) "Vote for Students" pledge is a pledge in the UK to vote against tuition fee increases that was signed by over 1,000 candidates standing in the general election in 2010, notably including a large number of Lab ...

against any increase. The result of the election meant that the Liberal Democrats were the third-largest party in the

House of Commons The House of Commons is the name for the elected lower house of the bicameral parliaments of the United Kingdom and Canada. In both of these countries, the Commons holds much more legislative power than the nominally upper house of parliament. ...

and formed a coalition government with the

Conservative Party The Conservative Party is a name used by many political parties around the world. These political parties are generally right-wing though their exact ideologies can range from center-right to far-right. Political parties called The Conservative P ...

. Following the

Browne Review The Browne Review or Independent Review of Higher Education Funding and Student Finance was a review to consider the future direction of higher education funding in England. It was launched on 9 November 2009 and published its findings on 12 Octo ...

, there was a vote in Parliament to raise tuition fees to £9,000. It passed with a majority of 21; several Liberal Democrat MPs, including Clegg, voted in favour of it because of the principle of

Cabinet collective responsibility Cabinet collective responsibility, also known as collective ministerial responsibility, is a constitutional convention in parliamentary systems that members of the cabinet must publicly support all governmental decisions made in Cabinet, even if ...

History

On 17 September 2012, Clegg issued a video apologising for voting in favour of raising tuition fees. On Thursday 20 September, the video of Clegg's apology was remixed and set to

Auto-Tune Auto-Tune (or autotune) is an audio processor introduced in 1996 by American company Antares Audio Technologies. Auto-Tune uses a proprietary device to measure and alter pitch in vocal and instrumental music recording and performances. Auto-Tu ...

music composed by Alex Ross. The chorus of the song consists of Clegg singing "I'm sorry". The video containing the song was published on

YouTube YouTube is a global online video platform, online video sharing and social media, social media platform headquartered in San Bruno, California. It was launched on February 14, 2005, by Steve Chen, Chad Hurley, and Jawed Karim. It is owned by ...

by The Poke's official channel. The song became popular and The Poke announced plans to release the song as a single on

iTunes iTunes () is a software program that acts as a media player, media library, mobile device management utility, and the client app for the iTunes Store. Developed by Apple Inc., it is used to purchase, play, download, and organize digital mul ...

and asked the Liberal Democrats for permission to do so. Clegg granted permission for the song to be released on the condition that the profits went to the Children's Hospital Charity in

Sheffield Sheffield is a city status in the United Kingdom, city in South Yorkshire, England, whose name derives from the River Sheaf which runs through it. The city serves as the administrative centre of the City of Sheffield. It is Historic counties o ...

. The single went on sale the day afterwards. Clegg was reported to have found the video personally amusing and remarked it was "very catchy". Clegg's wife,

Miriam Miriam ( he, מִרְיָם ''Mīryām'', lit. 'Rebellion') is described in the Hebrew Bible as the daughter of Amram and Jochebed, and the older sister of Moses and Aaron. She was a prophetess and first appears in the Book of Exodus. The Tor ...

, described the song as "genius" and "very good".

Charts

The song charted at number 143 in the UK Singles Chart. It was noted that the song would likely have charted higher had it been released earlier in the week instead of on the Friday when the charts were officially published on Sunday.

References

External links

The Nick Clegg Apology Song: I'm Sorry (The Autotune Remix)
(The Poke) {{authority control 2012 songs Political songs Liberal Democrats (UK) Nick Clegg Satirical songs Songs based on speech samples Songs about politicians Cultural depictions of British men Cultural depictions of politicians