The Lib Dems’ deputy leader Vince Cable is the cover star of the December issue of Total Politics, trailing a feature interview with the Tory blogger we all love to name-check, Iain Dale. Here’s a taster:
Do you see the Liberal Democrats as a centre-left party?
No, I don’t use that description. I know some of my colleagues have in the past. There are some areas where we are, to use the jargon, centre-left progressive. A redistributive approach to taxation is obviously one of them, but there are other respects in which we are genuinely liberal, which puts us on the other side. Lots of the writing I’ve done on economics is very much about a liberal approach to economic policy, free-trade and open markets. I don’t use that term because, although some of the things we say can be very clearly put in that box, in other respects, we are economically liberal. I think the other thing is, a lot of the things we’re about have nothing to do with the traditional left/right spectrum – localism, environmentalism, civil liberties, you can argue these from either a libertarian or a leftist perspective.
Imagine you have six months as Chancellor of the Exchequer. What’s the one thing you’d like to look back on and say: “I did that in my six months”?I would put sorting out the banking system at the top of the list. I think the government did the right things in October last year. It behaved well in the emergency – it was prompt and the rescue operation was necessary. I acknowledged it at the time and it’s still true. But they’ve let the situation drift, and if I had six months as our Lib Dem chancellor, I would first of all be much more proactive in making sure that the semi-nationalised and nationalised banks are lending to solid British companies, because they’re not doing it at the moment – they’ve lurched from extreme recklessness to extreme conservatism. So they’ve got to use the directors on the bank to make sure that they lend to good companies.
You can read the interview in full here.
Nich Starling and Jonathan Calder have both picked out their favourite snippets here and here.
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4 Comments
AlexF – How can I put this in a way that isn’t too offensive? Hmm….
OK… Have you considered that your new profile photo above this post might possibly be seen as a little unflattering? I mean, I’m a fan of beards, but this one seems to have consumed your whole face! And, well, your nose appears slightly more prominent and *shiny*. OTOH, I can see you’ve lost a lot of weight and want to show that off. And good for you! But maybe the chiengora sweater is a bit… de trop. No?
Hmm… actually I think that was fairly offensive. Please ignore.
Well, I’m centre left, Vince. I was when I joined NLYL 36 years ago, and I’ve not moved anywhere. And I never have and I’m not planning to.
It’s interesting Martin. Some liberals have often said that “left” and “right” aren’t very helpful labels because they only capture a single dimension of political variation (a dimension that doesn’t include liberalism). Yet others have been happy to label themselves “centre-left” because it’s only that part of the dimension that has an inherent concern for increasing fairness by non-revolutionary means.
For me, Vince puts his finger on it wonderfully. There are some areas where LibDems could typically be characterised as centre-left, notably in relation to a progressive, redistributive approach to taxation. Yet many would reject what could be characterised as a typically left-wing concern with controlling or minimising the role of markets. Moreover, he points out, there are many concerns that could be argued from either a libertarian or a leftist perspective: he cites localism, environmentalism and civil liberties. To the latter I would add (speaking only for what I’ve seen to be valued hereabouts) cultural liberalism, internationalism, separation of church and state, respect for science, accountability, openness, distrust of dogmatism, antipathy to bullying, good humour and generosity of spirit. [Did I miss out motherhood and apple pie?]
So I’m not really bothered how people end up responding to questions about the monochromatic left-right scale. There’s mch more going on than that.
I think another interesting question is whether Vince is seen outside political circles as the embodiment of a LibDem approach to politics that offers a conherent, distinct and wide-ranging alternative to the traditional philosophies of Labour and the Conservatives. Or whether rather he’s seen as a reasonable chap who’s often got good insights into economics.