The wonder is that the dyspeptic Business Secretary should wish to remain a member of a Government dominated by a Tory party that he asserted has ‘reverted to type as the nasty party’, and which, according to him, practises ‘ugly’ policies based on the calculation that ‘fear trumps hope’.
Mr Cable has regularly used Lib Dem conferences to lash the ‘hated’ Tories. But this speech went much further than the usual crowd-pleasing rant. It was a despicable assault on colleagues and on the Coalition’s record, delivered in tones of insufferable moral superiority.
Yesterday, Vince Cable delivered a speech which for sheer bile was without precedent in modern times. No Cabinet minister has ever attacked the Government of which he is part in such vitriolic terms
What he said amounted to the most shameless repudiation of the long- established doctrine of collective responsibility we’ve ever seen. Next week’s Labour Party conference will not produce anything to rival in sheer unpleasantness any of Mr Cable’s broadsides.
The day began with the expectation that he would embarrass his party leader, Nick Clegg, by refusing to vote for a motion endorsing the Coalition’s economic policies. His aides had intimated on Sunday that the great man had reservations.
Most people might expect the Business Secretary to support the economic measures for which he has been responsible, but they would be underestimating his chronic disloyalty and innate love of rocking whichever boat he happens to occupy.
In the event he did bring himself to vote for the motion, though not without telling journalists later that he had harboured misgivings. His behaviour was justly described by an ally of Mr Clegg as another example of his ‘endless vanity and gross insubordination’.
Mr Cable had reserved his greatest bombshell for his speech in which he berated the ‘Tea Party Tories’ for their views on immigration and Europe, while castigating them for their ‘ludicrous war on windmills’ — by which he means ugly, inefficient and ruinously expensive wind farms.
His hatred of the Tories reached its apogee when — unbelievably — he blamed them more than the Labour Government for ‘the biggest market failure of our lifetime’ — ie, the Great Crash of 2008.
Labour had admittedly ‘fallen asleep at the wheel’, but it was ‘the Tories’ friends and donors who were also at the heart of the greed and recklessness which lay behind that disaster’.
Mr Cable had reserved his greatest bombshell for his speech in which he berated the 'Tea Party Tories' for their views on immigration and Europe, while castigating them for their 'ludicrous war on windmills'
Isn’t this crazy? I mean, really crazy? The Conservatives, who had been long out of power, are held responsible by Vince Cable (a former Labour Party member, by the way) for causing the financial crash simply because some of the bankers who helped to bring it about were allegedly Tory supporters and donors.
Forget the fact it was Labour, not the Conservatives, which chose wildly to de-regulate the City; Labour that knighted Fred Goodwin, the reckless head of RBS; and Labour that gave a peerage to the scarcely less misguided Lord Stevenson, chairman of HBoS, which crashed in 2008. Labour was the friend of the big banks and it was Gordon Brown who boasted of the huge revenues he was milking out of institutions built on sand.
But then, by Mr Cable’s logic, one might as well arraign the Lib Dem financier and multi-millionaire Matthew Oakeshott for having precipitated the crash. Lord Oakeshott is Mr Cable’s busy right-hand man, who yearns to see his hero installed as leader of the Lib Dems and was twerpishly calling for Nick Clegg’s resignation only the other day.
Crazy talk?: The Conservatives, who had been long out of power, are held responsible by Vince Cable (a former Labour Party member, by the way) for causing the financial crash
And perhaps, to follow the loopy trajectory of Mr Cable’s argument, the Lib Dems should renounce their own rich donors for having caused the crash — not forgetting the multi-millionaire fraudster Michael Brown, now serving a seven-year sentence in jail, who gave millions of pounds to the party that it has never returned.
Throughout this unhinged onslaught on the Tories, Nick Clegg and Danny Alexander, the Lib Dem Chief Secretary to the Treasury, stared at Mr Cable as a couple of psychiatrists might observe a problematic patient on day release who has veered off-piste. They each managed an encouraging half-nod from time to time.
It was notable, too, that the party rank-and-file, who were supposed to be roused to hysteria by this feast of Tory-bashing, were little more than politely lukewarm. There were also a surprising number of empty seats.
What kind of man can sit at the same Cabinet table with colleagues whose party he has described as 'nasty' and 'ugly'? Only a man who wants to hang on to power at all costs
If Mr Cable is in the process of being disowned not only by the leadership of his party but also by some activists, does it matter if he chooses to launch a public attack on Cabinet colleagues? I’m sure it does, for unfortunately this sanctimonious rabble-rouser can’t be written off.
In the first place, he’s not wholly a busted flush politically. As a minister he may be ineffectual — he is fortunate to have acquired a capable number two in the shape of Michael Fallon, a Tory — but he still exerts an influence on Lib Dem policy.
More than anyone else in his party, he has been the champion of the mansion tax, which, according to a recent study, is likely to affect owners of houses well below the £2 million threshold envisaged by the Lib Dems if it is going to yield their target of £1.75 billion.
Owners of quite modest houses on even more modest incomes may find themselves drawn into Mr Cable’s net. I can think of several elderly couples living near me who would be unable to pay the proposed annual 1 per cent levy and in old age would have to leave the houses in which they have lived for many years.
It is, in fact, a tax almost as mad as the Business Secretary’s speech — but that does not mean it won’t one day become law. Mr Cable’s dream, of course, is to team up with Labour as Chancellor in a Lib-Lab Coalition while playing the part of the Liberal Democrat’s new leader.
Don’t rule it out. He will be 72 by the time of the next election, and after yesterday’s performance even Labour could be having second thoughts about having such an unreliable man as a partner, but Vince Cable could be the face of the Lib Dems after May 2015, if Mr Clegg is sacked as leader or loses his parliamentary seat in the General Election.
The greatest danger that he poses, though, is right now. The doctrine of collective responsibility rests on the notion that governments can’t function properly if its leading lights are at one another’s throats in public. Previous coalitions have observed this convention.
If Mr Cable were honourable, he would have long since resigned so he could criticise the Government from the backbenches. What kind of man can sit at the same Cabinet table with colleagues whose party he has described as ‘nasty’ and ‘ugly’? Only a man who wants to hang on to power at all costs.
He should resign, but he won’t. David Cameron can’t sack him and Nick Clegg daren’t. The presence of a virtual fifth columnist in the Cabinet, seeking to undermine policies that even other Lib Dems accept, is obviously not conducive to good government.
Yet there is perhaps a silver lining. Why is Mr Cable expressing his hatred for the Tories so bitterly at this time? Because he can’t bear the fact that economic recovery is under way as a result of Tory-inspired austerity measures against which he has sniped relentlessly for the past three years.
Of course, it would be a boon for the Coalition and the country if he went. But there is a countervailing compensation in his staying. The more Vince Cable wheedles and whinges, the surer we can be that the Coalition’s economic policies are finally working.
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