Can Lib Dems ketchup? Nick Clegg outshines Ed Miliband by munching on bacon butty

The Labour leader's efforts in eating a bacon butty while on the campaign trail last week led to a series of unflattering pictures and comments being posted online. 

But the Deputy Prime Minister managed to better maintain his dignity as he was filmed tucking into a breakfast butty during an interview on LBC Radio. 

After he was handed the sandwich by host Nick Ferrari at the end of his Call Clegg slot, the embattled party leader agreed to eat a single bite, opting to smother the bacon in tomato ketchup.

He said "surely I can get away with it on radio" before being reminded that the event was being be captured on camera.

"This is very unfair, because I don't think anyone looks very elegant," he said. "I thought it was a bit unfair on poor Ed Miliband."

Mr Miliband, who was snapped struggling with a sandwich at New Covent Garden market in London in the run-up to last week's elections, played down the importance of the blow to his image.

In an interview, he told of meeting someone who was contemplating "ending it all" because his low wages could not support his family.

"Suddenly bacon sandwiches look slightly beside the point," Mr Miliband said.

After taking a mouthful today, Mr Clegg mumbled "very good" and was told by Ferrari: "That is how to eat a bacon sandwich, no doubt about it."

Mr Clegg, who has faced a plot to oust him following disastrous elections which saw the party reduced to a single MEP, joked that the butty provided him with the robust constitution needed for politics.

"I get it from the bacon sandwich," he explained. 

Mr Clegg insisted Business Secretary Vince Cable was not involved in the failed bid to remove him from the party's helm. 

He said Dr Cable was fully supportive of his leadership and insisted he did not believe "for a second" the Cabinet minister had been behind the plot. 

The Deputy Prime Minister said Dr Cable was "absolutely not" aware of damaging polls on the party's leadership, which were later leaked. 

"He has made it very, very clear that he, for instance, didn't want any questions about leadership in the poll which he did have some control over in his own constituency," Mr Clegg said. 

"So, look, I fully expect that people will try and suggest that there are endless plots and conspiracies. 

"I don't believe that for a second. Vince is an outstanding Secretary of State for Business. 

"He and I have worked together for years and years and years and we are going to continue to work together in harness as part of a really strong Lib Dem team in government. Full stop." 

Asked if he would sack Dr Cable, Mr Clegg told LBC: "Absolutely not .... Vince and I are going to carry on working together successfully to deliver many of the policies and ideas that we have been campaigning on as Liberal Democrats for years and years and years."

Prime Minister David Cameron also backed Dr Cable, despite the row.

He told Sky News: "I judge Vince Cable by the results that the business department is delivering.

"Right now he's out in China, our exports to China have increased massively under this Government.

“We're backing the businesses of the future. Vince is playing an important role in that."

Long-time Clegg critic Lord Oakeshott yesterday resigned the Lib Dem whip on the back of the revolutionary rumblings in the party, but made a parting shot, branding the Deputy Prime Minister "disastrous".