Carly Rae Jepsen’s video starred Tom Hanks and was shot in New York. Nick Clegg’s parody was knocked off in Gravesend

There are lots of reasons why the Liberal Democrats were wiped out at the general election. To the long list we might now add that the world never got to see Nick Clegg’s version of a pop music video in which he pretended to be Tom Hanks.

In the weeks before polling day last year the deputy prime minister spent several days, and almost £8,000 of party funds, starring in a shot-for-shot re-creation of the video for I Really Like You by Carly Rae Jepsen, the Canadian singer.

The stunt was conceived as a way of getting the Lib Dem leader to “go viral”, but it was never shown publicly and staff were sworn to secrecy about its existence.

Tom Hanks high-fives strangers in the video for Jepsen’s I Really Like You

It was designed to show that