"From each according to his ability to each according to his need," quips the man in the Number 10 press office to the keen young recruit. "You're far too clever to waste on checking George Osborne's adding up or drafting the next clarification of William Hague's sexuality. We're going to set you to work on the hardest challenge facing the government at this time of crisis: restoring Nick Clegg's reputation."

"Take it as a compliment," advises an old hand as the downcast newbie makes his way towards the Lib Dem leader's office. "It's like the Kobayashi Maru – it's an impossible task but the most gifted have to try."

"I'm not actually a big fan of Star Trek," replies the greenhorn.

"Ah, but you got the reference, you NERD!"

"They told me the bullying would stop when I joined the Lib Dems," our hero mutters woefully as he settles down to brainstorm ideas for the deputy prime minister's next speech. "I thought we were all in this together."

At the end of his first day, all he's come up with is an elaborate leak to the press subtly implying that when Clegg was conducting negotiations with the other parties in the aftermath of the election, Gordon Brown tried to get off with him.

"Coalition with the Tories is surely more than explicable in that context, isn't it?" he thinks, reading it through. "Or would that make Nick seem homophobic? Surely not. You don't have to be homophobic not to want to have sex with Gordon Brown, do you? You'd have to be half blind to – no, that's unworthy of me.

"And Brown's married anyway. Both of them are married. That's it: it would have been unfair on their respective wives to have let Gordon Brown bum him. Hence the coalition. Probably don't need to express it quite like that. The message is that it's better to be metaphorically shafted than… can we say that?"

Exhausted, he slopes off home, vowing to have a better idea first thing in the morning. As soon as his alarm goes off, he does…

Was this how Nick Clegg's phrase "alarm clock Britain" came about? A keen aide, annoyed by having to get up so early to recover public respect for his master, suddenly sees that very annoyance as something that might unify everyone the coalition hopes to appeal to? Decent people like him. People who have to get up in the morning. But don't want to. But know they must.

Not people who put their alarm clocks on snooze, the scum! Or maybe, yes, people who put their alarm clocks on snooze once – who doesn't do that? We're all human – but absolutely not the scroungers who put their alarm clocks on snooze twice. Parasites! Unpunctual layabout benefit cheats!

Maybe twice is OK – but you get the idea, they basically get up when they're supposed to. They at least set the bloody thing. Anyone who goes to bed without setting an alarm at all must surely be a committed Tory or Labour voter – they're probably a duke or a tramp. It's the squeezed middle – between dukes and tramps – that we want to reach out to.

All those people who feel tired and busy and like they could do with some more money, and who don't want to pay too much tax on the money they've got, but want to know that the public services that are important to them are being protected. Do you know the sort of people I mean? Not people like Richard Branson. Or benefit cheats. Just, you know, everyone else.

This kind of approach – Clegg appealing to "alarm clock Britain", Miliband to "the squeezed middle" or any politician to "hard-working families" – is maddening because it's inane. These terms are meaningless. It's trying to classify people according to their own estimation of their contribution to society. "Do you sometimes feel exhausted and conscientious?" Yes, almost everyone does, including dyed-in-the-wool slackers and hypochondriacs. "Then it's you we're here to help!"

There are some specifics to alarm clock Britain. Writing in the Sun last week, Clegg said he meant: "People who don't want to rely on state handouts" – so those reliant on benefits are included, but only as long as they'd rather inherit a trust fund or win the lottery. He was talking about: "People who don't need politicians to tell them what to think or how to live their lives." What a courageous rejection of that clingy demographic! To the millions begging: "Please Mr Clegg, tell me what to think and how to live my life!", he says: "Be gone! You're not an alarm clock Briton!"

Anything else? Yes, you've got to have children. These platitudes always seem to exclude the childless. According to Clegg, he means "people who want their kids to get ahead", "the mums and dads who get up every morning and juggle work with raising their families" and "the grandparents too". I'm beginning to feel left out now. Maybe one of my friends with kids will ask me to be a god-alarm clock Briton? Although, come to think of it, I don't actually have an alarm clock – I use my phone. It's not a smartphone though, so I'm not a complete twat.

Clegg says that the ACBs "are the backbone of Britain. These are the people who will get this country moving again… they drive our economy every single day of the year. Rain, wind or shine, they are busy making this country tick." He also says: "The people in alarm clock Britain deserve a break." Surely that's a terrible idea! It sounds like, if they let up for an instant, we're screwed.

Near where I live in Kilburn, there's a building with a Foster's sign outside, under which is written: "Done Our Bit Club". I don't know what the Done Our Bit Club is, but I assume its members reckon they've done their bit. Just like the squeezed middle and alarm clock Britain, they've "played by the rules" and maybe even "put something back" and so can spend the rest of their lives drinking Foster's. Confident in their contribution, they feel no guilt.

The guilt-free scare me. Nice people, in my experience, feel guilty a lot of the time. It's an unedifying trend among our politicians to appeal to the side of human nature that congratulates itself but finds fault in others. The other way round is more polite. I'm not going to vote for someone just because he'll give me a medal for getting out of bed when my alarm goes off.