'TV adverts are robbing our children of their innocence'

The Liberal Democrat leader, who is due to become a father for a third time, believes it is time to seriously consider a ban on adverts on TV during programmes for young children.

"I have, as a father, become acutely aware of the commercial pressures on my children," Mr Clegg told the Evening Standard.

"There is a channel of cartoons (Tiny Pop) that my children watch in which they are bombarded by advertising every 15 minutes. I don't like it.

"I'm increasingly, as a father and politician, thinking we have not got the balance right."

Mr Clegg, 41, and his wife Miriam Gonzalez Durantez, who have two boys, aged four and six, are expecting their third child in February. But the couple are adamant that they will keep their children out of the public eye.

"For me, as a father, and an absolutely besotted father of two lovely little boys, and Miriam, as a very devoted mother to them, we just took the decision that their innocence was best protected by not holding any hostages to fortune by making [them] public," said Mr Clegg.

However, he stressed he was not criticising David and Samantha Cameron who earlier this year allowed a TV crew into their London home to film their family morning routine including their three children. "I'm not going to start being judgmental", he said.

The Lib-Dem leader argued there was a failure to properly "nurture" children in Britain.

"We fail to protect thousands of children - either by not giving them support when they need it or by almost wilfully pushing them into the criminal justice system," he said.

"We don't protect children's innocence, and protect their vulnerability and then what happens we become adults and we are treated like children again, we are spied on, we are checked and monitored.

"I want to live in a society where we nurture and protect that innocence of children, particularly those crucial years where people's potential, talents and selfconfidence really takes shape."