Author Archives: Vince Cable

Sir Vince Cable is the former MP for Twickenham and was leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 until 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015.

Bullied bullies and the New World Order

It is a common trait of bullies that they resort to self-pity; claiming to have been bullied themselves. Yet such psychopathology is found not only in the school playground but in the affairs of nations.

Putin’s narrative justifying the invasion of a peaceful neighbour and attendant war crimes draws heavily on a history of post-Soviet Russia being taken advantage of by the West. When China behaves badly it is apt to invoke its own ‘century of humiliation’. The rulers of a newly confident India hark back to past conquests by Muslim invaders to justify persecuting religious minorities. The Balkans and the Middle East continue to suffer the trauma of bullied bullies who excuse themselves in appeals to their own past suffering.

But the USA? Taken advantage of by the world? Exploited and abused by cheaters; scavengers; plunderers; pillagers; rapists. Really? Trump is a smart politician and seems to have found in the MAGA crowd a deep vein of self-pity for all the unfairness heaped on America: ungrateful. free-riding Europeans; devious Asians who have stolen America’s industry; invading Latinos; even, the dastardly Canadians. 

Many countries nurse a mixture of pride and guilt about their history, and their identity. The former colonial powers, like the UK, have had to accept being thrown out of their colonies. Germany and Japan had to come to terms with comprehensive defeat. For sure, the USA has had to come to terms with the genocide of its native inhabitants and slavery. But it can also boast vast achievements: winner of the Cold War; a widely admired ‘shining city on the hill’; creator of the institutions and rules which led to 70 odd years of remarkable global progress; and, still, the undisputed economic and technological leader of the Western world. So why is the Trump bully boy so sorry for himself? 

One grievance is partly justified but has nothing to do with the trade war which Trump has unleashed:  the long-standing failure of America’s European and Asian allies to pay their share of common defence.  After all, the USA has taken on the risk of nuclear incineration which could conceivably be triggered by some miscalculation or mischief made by Europeans in the Baltic or the Balkans.  Trump is right to insist that if Europeans won’t pay up, they can’t expect continued protection.  But, typically ungracious, he fails to acknowledge that British, Danish, Dutch and other Europeans have given their lives supporting the Americans in their questionable wars of choice in Afghanistan and Iraq.

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Vince Cable writes…Standing up to Trump

I know from experience that leading the Liberal Democrats is a frustrating job; marginalised in the media and patronised by the two traditional parties. But periodically we hit on a message which resonates in the country, as with Charles Kennedy’s opposition to the Iraq war.  Ed Davey may have found another: ‘Stand up to Trump’. 

These are early days in the second Trump administration, but a political, economic and cultural revolution is under way. The MAGA movement is also much bigger than its capricious, unpredictable leader. Trump’s apostles like JD Vance and Hegseth are ideologically extreme but also articulate, smart and superficially plausible. And they regard Britain with contempt: our secular and liberal values; our diverse society; our democratically elected government. We need to understand that the sentimental nonsense about the ‘special relationship’ is over. We are under attack.

I have some sympathy for our government. Starmer is being understandably cautious recognising that there is much uncertainty and danger.  The resulting passivity has however created a leadership vacuum. The Tories and Reform vie to be mini-Trumps. They are also skirting around the edge of treacherous collusion with people who openly declare their wish to overthrow our legitimate government. Nor will leadership come from the lazy anti-Americanism of the far left which sees Trump as merely a cruder spokesman for American imperialism than Clinton or Obama.

Step forward the leader of the Liberal Democrats to provide a focal point for resistance. The fact that Ed Davey has attracted the abuse of Trump’s outrider, Elon Musk, is to his credit. Being described as a ‘snivelling cretin’ tells us less about him than about the deranged people who insult him: the MAGA folk who think that Tommy Robinson is the authentic voice of the British working class; that London is a Muslim city; and that ‘free speech’ has been outlawed in the UK. The irony of using ‘freedom’ as a dividing line with Britain appears to be completely lost on people whose idea of personal freedom is ownership of offensive automatic weapons, facilitating mass killings. As for the decadence and decay of Europe it pays to point out that, in Trump’s macho USA, male life expectancy is five years or so less than ours and less than in China or Ecuador.

But apart from firing verbal projectiles, what does ‘standing up to Trump’ look like?  Tariffs?  We will be dragged down like everyone else by a global trade war.  But in relation to Trump’s irrational obsession with bilateral trade balances, the UK is in the clear albeit with some minor quibbling about the statistics. Britain’s exports are, any event, skewed to services and other items which don’t carry tariffs. An exception is steel, and the remnants of this once great industry are set to take another beating. Outside the EU, Britain does not have the clout to retaliate, and, in any event, the Americans will point out that for British exporters to complain about tariffs is a bit rich since Britain unilaterally raised tariffs against itself when it left the EU customs union.

More reassuringly, the USA is no longer quite the power in world trade it once was, or Trump thinks it is.  The EU is the dominant power in trade in goods and services combined, China in goods. Though relatively declining, the US is still the world’s largest importer with around 15% of world imports narrowly ahead of the EU and China. It can damage its trade partners, as it clearly intends to do, but there is nothing to stop them trading more with each other. America, of course, runs big trade deficits.  It has the privilege of being able to consume disproportionately by issuing dollar IOUs (which may soon lose their appeal as a store of value). Trump’s particular genius has been an ability to translate this self-indulgence into victimhood. We have no reason to fuel this national self-pity.  We should ignore it; diversify away from the USA; re-build trading relationships with our European neighbours; and prioritise emerging markets including those that annoy the Americans as with China, Mexico and Vietnam. Hedging is the best response to uncertainty.

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TikTok: a Chinese farce in several parts

A popular app enjoyed by 170 million or more Americans went ‘dark’ on Sunday after the Chinese-owned TikTok was banned in the USA as a perceived threat to national security.

I am not a user. My interest is as a ‘China-watcher’ worried about the deteriorating relationship between the world’s two superpowers. I was however surprised to see that there was no outburst of rejoicing from the legion of China ‘hawks’ that this evil weapon of the genocidal Communists had been so effectively shot down (and shut down). Indeed, the originator of the ban (President-elect Trump) and its dutiful implementor (President Biden) seemed to be doing their best to save it. Very confusing.

The origin of the ban was in 2020 when President Trump was campaigning for re-election. One of his rallies was embarrassingly badly attended after college students operated a social media prank on TikTok persuading people not to go. Trump was furious and threatened to have TikTok banned. His political supporters scurried to help and quickly latched onto the fact that TikTok had a Chinese corporate owner (Bytedance), albeit headquartered in Singapore.

In the feverish, hostile bipartisanship which surrounds anything Chinese, it wasn’t difficult to mobilise Congressional support for a ban on national security grounds. Congressional hearings produced no evidence that TikTok’s Chinese owners had ever tried to share sensitive information with Chinese authorities, engage in espionage or do anything more than make a lot of money for shareholders by providing original but harmless entertainment. But they might, it was argued.

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A longer read: Green policies under fire

The politics of climate change has got a whole lot uglier.  ‘Saving the planet’ may make for good speeches to the party faithful but the political costs are now becoming more apparent.

The planned job losses in the car industry, including the closure of the Vauxhall (Stellantis) plant at Luton, have made the vision of ‘green jobs’ more difficult to sell. The industrial strategy I oversaw in the Coalition involved expansion of the car industry and a highlight was going to the USA to head off closures of Vauxhall’s plants and get a commitment to UK expansion. Now the industry has concluded that the mandatory target for sales of EVs (22% this year rising to 100% by 2030) is just too difficult. My successor as Business Secretary is having to revisit the policy.

Public warnings by experts of a short-term increase energy prices as we transition to renewable power has also sent nervous tremors through government ministers. Reform UK has smelt blood and sees political prey in the form of ‘net zero’. The Tories are keeping step with their rivals on the populist right. Long gone are the days when Margaret Thatcher led international opinion on the need to tackle climate change and her successors (up to and including Boris Johnson) could be relied upon to support a political consensus including mandating ‘net zero’ targets by legislation. Opposition politicians have sensed that the British public enthusiastically supports the fight against climate change but only if it doesn’t have to pay.

The budget was another warning sign of political nervousness. An obvious revenue raiser, and ‘green’ policy, was to raise petrol and diesel duties which have been frozen for over a decade by governments reluctant to upset motorists and lorry drivers. Nothing happened. With bus subsidies cut, and rail fares set to rise, there is yet another incentive to resist environmentally friendly change in transport.

A much bigger and more painful decision looms. Britain has an opportunity to make EV motoring much more accessible by importing large numbers of low-cost Chinese cars. China has, quite suddenly, become the world’s leading nation for car production and is poised to flood world markets with relatively cheap but high quality EVs. The EU has panicked over the threat to European producers and has thrown up tariff barriers. The USA already blocks Chinese imports. But Britain has an open market. Car industry jobs versus the greening of transport is precisely the kind of dilemma that politicians hate but will soon face.

In practice, the trade-offs can be made less painful by persuading the Chinese car companies like BYD to set up shop in the UK and produce locally. This was the strategy employed four decades ago with the Japanese companies which were then coming to dominate the industry: hence Nissan in Sunderland.

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Vince Cable on the budget: manifesto folly

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‘Read my lips: no new taxes’; ‘we will reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands’; ‘we pledge not to increase tuition fees’. Promises easily made in an election campaign. A source of endless regret in government.

There will be endless regret from Labour’s manifesto commitment not to raise tax rates on taxes accounting for three quarters of tax revenue.  There is an urgent and compelling need to raise taxes in the coming budget for reasons of fiscal prudence and to stem the decline in public services. Yet, despite having an enormous parliamentary majority, the government has denied itself a mandate properly to address these fundamental problems.

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Vince Cable writes: Caring less for Carers

One of the political messages which did get through in the July General Election – thanks to Ed Davey – was the vital importance, but also the chronic neglect, of carers. There are an estimated 1 in 5 of the population who care, unpaid, for sick or disabled loved ones: a vast invisible army without whom society would literally fall apart. Ed was able to use his own direct experience as a carer, and that of his upbringing, to highlight some of the problems – which are growing as the population ages and as fiscal pressures grow. 

Having got the issue on the agenda, what do we say and do about it? First, we need to sweep away some of the complexity and topical red herrings like the mooted, but now abandoned, ‘cap’ on social care costs.  A key starting point is the distinction between the 1.5 million care workers who are the professional backbone of adult social care (that is, care outside the NHS) and the estimated 10 million unpaid carers who are estimated to be the equivalent of 4 million paid care workers. The care workers are usually very badly paid, have minimal career progression and often have stressful working conditions which is why 10% of vacancies are unfilled and why recruitment depends very heavily on immigration from Asia and Africa. 

The unpaid carers are more numerous and less visible. Any conscientious MP or councillor will know however of the horror stories and heroics amongst carers: bereaved or abandoned children caring for other children to stay out of care homes; parents struggling to manage children with complex needs requiring 24-hour attention; elderly couples with waning powers and strength trying to help each other to manage a home and combat loneliness;  or the daughter (usually) of a frail or disabled parent trying to manage children, part-time job and mum.  Local councils provide some domiciliary support subject to means tests and -rising- thresholds of physical need which, itself, needs – scarce – social worker assessment. Almost 80% of carers receive no support. 

Carers’ needs are not just financial or physical. Caring imposes heavy emotional demands. My limited experience caring for my late wife when terminally ill was demanding enough and I was lucky to have a supportive family and friends and reasonable finances.  My wife was brave, lucid and engaged unlike the growing numbers of elderly, dementia sufferers who tax the emotional reserves of their carers. Many carers have had to give up careers and leisure, are isolated and lonely and worried stiff about money. The most useful support is often respite: time out for exercise, shopping, meeting people. But day respite care, let alone holidays, is patchy at best.

Helping carers usually involves money- for more, high quality, professional carers to support those struggling at home; more, better funded respite centres; more generous carers’ allowances; more generous eligibility tests for support. And that means more money channelled through cash strapped local government. Eyes inevitably roll at the mention of money. But support for carers is not a financial black hole; it keeps the frail elderly out of hospital and in the community; children out of care homes and specialist institutions. It keeps families together and the elderly from expensive institutional care. 

But for those of us who don’t subscribe to the tree theory of money there are difficult choices and trade-offs to be made. That is the context of the review of public spending being undertaken by the Labour government. The care sector – and local government, which is responsible for most of it – is facing austerity piled on austerity and is in competition for funds with the courts, prisons, defence, public sector workers and much else. Clearly taxes must rise but no one expects the tax increases to be remotely adequate to meet the current pressure on public services. It is important therefore to get priorities right.

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Made in Britain

In a factory in rural Durham, the government’s commitment to ‘levelling up’ and to manufacturing industry is being tested to destruction. The Hitachi railway manufacturing plant, employing 700 and thousands more in the supply chain, is threatened with closure. Procrastination over HS2, lack of joined up planning for the railway industry and Covid’s negative effect on travel have, together, led to a three-year gap in the company’s order book. The Japanese owners cannot realistically be expected to mothball the plant for three years and so it will most likely close.

I got to visit the plant (along with Lib Dem candidates including Aidan King the prospective Mayor for the North East). I went the day after Keir Starmer had been on a well-publicised visit, making reassuring, if non-committal, comments about the future of the plant under Labour. For me, the visit had deeper significance. A decade ago, I had opened the plant: then, a tent in a muddy field. Attracting Hitachi to build trains in Britain was one of the successes of the Coalition’s Industrial Strategy and, until very recently, it seemed to be an inspired investment decision for Hitachi.

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A postcard from Sir Vince in Kyiv

The main evidence of war in Kyiv in the last few days has been a series of loud bangs in the middle of the night – Russian rockets meeting Patriot Missiles apart from the one which got through and hit a power plant.

Otherwise, Kyiv is a normal and beautiful, bustling European city of 3.5 million with busy pavement cafes and restaurants, flourishing shopping centres and street stalls, traffic jams and young people zooming round on e-scooters. After a while you notice the numbers of burly off-duty soldiers in uniform, the exhibitions in civic squares honouring war casualties and the forest of flags to the memory of those who died in Maidan Square in the 2014 Orange revolution. So, not so normal. A war for national survival is taking place, to expel the Russian invaders.

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Vince Cable MP reflects on recent events and some holiday reading


Jane Dodds applauds helpers at Brecon – Photo by Callum Littlemore

I heard the good news about Brecon and Radnorshire having disappeared for some R&R as soon as Parliament closed, and the new Lib Dem leadership was settled. I was delighted with the result not just for Jane Dodds and our campaigners – who fully deserved it – but for an excellent colleague, Roger Williams, who didn’t deserve to lose back in 2015. Our victory is testament also to Kirsty Williams, our AM, who kept the Lib Dem flame, and local party, alive through the years of exile.

I enjoyed my three visits to the constituency as party leader for more than the politics. I had memories of a mis-spent and romantic youth as a mountain guide in the Black Mountains and Brecon Beacons; an idyllic second honeymoon in a hotel below Pen-y-Fan; and several literary fests at Hay. Jane helped Rachel and me to locate a stunning B&B in ‘the oldest house in Wales’, a farmhouse and restored annex reached through three farm gates high up a hillside on the banks of the Wye and serving food which would not have been out of place in a top restaurant. A great by-election in more ways than one.

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Vince Cable MP writes…Changing the Liberal Democrats

Politics is changing in the UK and around the world. Conventional wisdom and assumptions are being blown away by people powered movements from Trump to Trudeau, from Macron to Brexit. Old style political parties face a simple choice – change or be swept away.

The Liberal Democrats have a long and proud history of approaching these transformational moments head on — by localising power, fostering diversity and nurturing creativity. We fight for our fundamental values of liberty, equality and community. In short, we live by the very principles that successful movements are built upon.

Earlier this year, we set a new direction for our party, by passing a motion at conference to “Create a political and social movement which encourages people to take and use power in their own lives and communities at every level of society.”

It is time to make good on this directive — to transform our party into a wider liberal movement that will bring positive change to Britain.

The proposals I am putting forward today for consultation with all our members involve building up our supporter base, opening it up – at no charge – to people who subscribe to our values. Some already help with leaflet delivery and in other ways.  I would like to see the party offer them the right to vote in future leadership elections, as a way of making them a part of our movement. Of course, we will need robust measures against entryism, and I am confident we can find the right mechanisms.

I am also suggesting that we make it easier for new members to stand for election on a Liberal Democrat ticket by removing the delay before they can be selected.

Another idea is to stop excluding good leadership candidates who share our values just because they have not yet pursued a career in Parliament. Of course they would need to meet appropriate standards, and command sufficient support in the party to be nominated.  This would widen the pool of leadership talent open to us, and signal our intention to be an open and inclusive force.

None of this detracts from the central importance of our issues-based campaigning against Brexit and for the People’s Vote.  It is about building up our strength to fight these battles, and those which lie beyond.

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Vince Cable writes…We need to catch up with our European neighbours in fighting Cancer

Cancer is traumatising. It is universal, leaving no family untouched.

I saw this first-hand. Cancer took my first wife, Olympia, in 2001. To repeat what I wrote in my memoirs, that experience showed me that whatever may be said in criticism of the NHS, the capacity of the system to deliver high quality, sophisticated treatment to the acutely sick is so greatly appreciated by those who receive it.

Living with and caring for a cancer sufferer for 14 years led me to want to help others and to use my political position to do so. I campaigned subsequently for wider breast cancer screening, a screening programme for cervical cancer and the introduction of bowel cancer screening.

So many people work so hard to stop cancer: raising money with bake sales, running marathons, nagging our loved ones to eat better, drink less, stop smoking.

In the 2017/18 alone, there were donations of £192m to Cancer Research UK, a further £153m raised from events and charity shops.

But Cancer Research UK is marking the 70th anniversary of the NHS with a campaign to get the Government to commit to invest in training and employing more specialist staff to diagnose cancer early.

This is because, despite all we are doing, all the money we are raising, the UK is falling behind other European countries in the successful treatment of cancer. Olympia had diagnosis and  treatment that showed the NHS at its best. Others have been less fortunate – an IT glitch meant hundreds of thousands of women in England missed breast cancer screenings. 

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Vince Cable writes: Lib Dems will be at the forefront of political realignment

It is a year today since I became party leader, and a great deal has happened since.

Thanks to the efforts of so many of our members and campaigners, we had the best set of local election results of the three main parties in England in councils gained and the best overall for us in fifteen years.  We have every reason to hope that next year will be better still – we are already preparing.

The by-election in Lewisham East was our best against Labour for a decade.  Local council contests each week continue to reinforce the positive message our surveys are giving us.

Whatever toxicity attached to the Lib Dem brand after the Coalition has substantially dissipated.  Large numbers will vote for us if they think we have a chance of winning and if there is an effective campaign

As well as winning elections, we are setting out big ideas to change the country.  A few weeks ago, I detailed an ambitious but realistic approach to house building, describing what could be achieved without the impediment of ideological prejudice.

I have also launched a series of initiatives to confront the issues thrown up by the new digital economy and deal with the ‘data giants’; a group is looking at how best to support lifelong learning for people whose future is potentially subject to the upheavals of technological change; another will soon look more broadly at the impact of new technologies like AI and how best to respond to them.

On the core economy, I have set out a revised approach to fiscal and monetary policy which builds on, but does not destroy, existing structures.  We have carried out serious work on land value taxation, which will come before Conference in the Autumn. And I have described how in practice we create a corporate structure which is best described as ‘responsible capitalism’.

On public services, Liberal Democrats continue to lead the argument about the mechanics for funding health and social care with the advice of leading figures in health policy. The Federal Policy Committee has recently set up a new health working group to take forward their work, and to continue our leadership role in mental health policy pioneered by Norman Lamb. Layla Moran, our education spokesperson, has published proposals to address the concerns of parents, teachers and schools, which we endorsed at conference.

The politics of Brexit is moving slowly but substantially in our direction.  Where our calls for a final say on the deal for the public were once derided, more and more people are now joining with us in that campaign.  A highlight of my year was addressing the 100,000 people amassed in Parliament Square for the People’s Vote march.  We remain the leading political force arguing that whatever the parliamentary wranglings over detail, the best course for Britain is to stop Brexit altogether.  Giving the people a choice at the end of this dismal negotiating process is the best way to obtain an exit from Brexit

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“Time to reform NHS funding” – Vince Cable

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Today I launched Health and Social Care: Delivering a Secure Funding Future, which offers some compelling answers on how to reform NHS funding. This report was initiated by my colleague, Norman Lamb, who is rightly recognised as one of the most important figures in modern British health policy.

Compiled for the Liberal Democrats by 10 health & social care specialists, including former chief executives of NHS England, the Royal College of Nursing and the Patients Association, the timing could not be more significant given the Conservatives postponed more than 50,000 operations just last month.

Drawing on their recommendations …

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Vince Cable writes: Why are Brexiteers so scared of the people?

Liberal Democrats are united on Europe. We strongly believe that Britain is better off as a full member of the European Union. I am proud of this stance, and continue to argue for an ‘exit from Brexit’. The European Union has been a project of huge economic and social success, fostering prosperity and maintaining peace on a continent historically ravaged by division and war. I want Britain to remain. The Liberal Democrats are the party of Remain.

Meanwhile, even the spectre of leaving is doing great damage. Parliament has been asked to confer huge new power on Government – far from ‘taking back control’ as the country was promised. Already our economy is being jeopardised by the huge devaluation in the pound, which is pushing up prices and leaving British companies vulnerable to takeovers. An exodus of highly skilled European workers puts public services at risk too.

As a party, we acknowledge the result of the 2016 referendum, which gave the Government a mandate to start negotiations to leave. Yet it becomes clearer by the day that we were absolutely right to argue the negotiations would never deliver the promises of the Leave campaign. When the true scale of that failure is known, the public must get a first referendum on the facts. I believe they will demand it. And there will be no deal on offer which is better than staying in the European Union.

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Vince Cable writes: What Brexit means

 

I appreciated the large response to my post-referendum blog on the 48 Movement.  The Bank Holiday Sunday press reminds us that this issue will very soon return with a vengeance as the politicians come back from their holidays.  The Brexit hardliners in the Tory party are already preparing their narrative of betrayal by Remainer ministers and sabotage by civil servants.

When I wrote my note there was agreement on many points, not least the negative impacts which still await us, but two things I said triggered a negative reaction.  One was my argument that the result was final and could not be wished away by legal subterfuge or attempts to reverse the vote.  I see that  Owen Smith in the Labour leadership contest is arguing for a re-run through a second referendum and that position appeals to many in our own party.  There will be debate on this issue at Conference. Since, unlike Labour, we have nothing to prove on the EU issue I hope we can be more realistic.  The most recent polls show that almost all Brexit voters and half of Remainers accept the result however much we deplore it.  Shock, anger and remorse are very understandable but not if these harden into the conviction that the majority of voters are gullible fools.

The second point of controversy was my view that the free movement of EU labour should not be regarded as an inviolable principle, but is now politically unsustainable and of questionable merit when at the expense of non-EU migration.  There are better ways of being liberal on immigration: opposing the self-harming stupidity of the current ‘crack-down’ on overseas, non-EU, students to help Theresa May meet her absurd target; defending the position of EU nationals who are already resident here; promoting a less pusillanimous approach to refugees, as Tim Farron has been doing.

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Vince Cable writes…The birth of the 48 movement

For our party and its supporters in the country the last few years have brought one defeat after another:  local councils, devolved government, national government, AV referendum, now the EU referendum.  There is a limit to the number of times a boxer can climb back up off the floor.  What fortifies me is the adage that winners are losers who never give up.  And perhaps we should think bigger: not as a small party with an 8% core vote but the centre of gravity of a broad movement of 48% of voters who chose Remain.

The first step in responding to defeat has been to look for scapegoats: the people who led a poor and failing campaign.  Cameron has gone and (hopefully) Corbyn and Osborne are going.   But in truth the Remain campaign as a whole failed to grasp the strength of the opposing coalition: not just conservative pensioners who want the past back but the’ left behind ‘who have suffered declining living standards and public services, the Commonwealth voters who felt Europe was at their expense and many who felt this was the best way to give an unpopular and unrepresentative government a good kicking.

That is why we have to approach the result with some humility.  There is nothing to be gained by denial: crying foul. We wuz robbed, ref.  I see petitions demanding a re-run, legal challenges and appeals to parliament to ‘do something’.  Dream on.  Of course the Leave campaign was mendacious; of course the referendum shouldn’t have happened; of course parliament was negligent in not building in thresholds. But the public was clearly told by both sides that the result would be final. And there was a big turnout.  That is it..

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Vince Cable writes…Where we can all agree on Syria

The political debate on Syria has produced a bewildering array of people proceeding from the same premises to opposite conclusions and from different premises to the same conclusions.   We have an ‘anti-war’ coalition which unites Nigel Farage, David Davis, Jeremy Corbyn, the SNP, the Greens and the Mail and the ‘pro-war’ camp includes the Tory government, a sizeable chunk of the parliamentary Labour Party, the Liberal Democrats, the Financial Times and the Indy.

At recent party events I have attended there is disquiet and confusion.  I see that two thirds of Lib Dem Voice readers oppose the British air strikes. Veterans of Iraq war marches ask why we are not marching again to recapture one of the party’s finest hours.  I share some of the confusion no longer having the benefit of participating in discussions amongst parliamentary colleagues. I have had the benefit of Cabinet-level briefings, which led me to endorse air strikes 18 months ago; but much has changed since.

It would be useful to identify a series of propositions on which I believe most reasonable people, on either side of the debate, can agree.

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Vince Cable writes… Osborne’s deep cuts are damaging and ideological

It is encouraging to be part of a Lib Dem chorus from across the party denouncing Osborne’s damaging, ideologically inspired, proposals for further deep cuts in spending on public services throughout the next Parliament.

Being in coalition means that we have to go out of our way to differentiate ourselves clearly from the Tories on the central issue of economic policy. The Tories want to create an election narrative of Tory competence versus Labour incompetence (with the LibDems portrayed either as marginal to the story or cheering the Tories on). Next week’s parliamentary debate on a fiscal charter makes the issue of differentiation particularly topical.

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Vince Cable writes… Remembering Alan Turing

IMG_0923Today sees the general release of the film The Imitation Game, a dramatic portrayal of the life and work of Alan Turing.

By all accounts the film, with the leading role played by Benedict Cumberbatch, is set to be a great success. Oscars are already being talked about.

But why am I drawing attention to this specific film?

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Vince Cable writes…Strengthening confidence in the UK’s takeover laws

London Stock Exchange photo by Jam_90sThe attempted but abortive Pfizer takeover bid for AstraZeneca has triggered a timely political debate in the UK about whether the safeguards in mergers and takeover legislation are adequate – especially when significant research and development assets are at stake.  It is now clear to me that some changes should be made.

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Vince Cable MP writes… My view on George Osborne’s employee ownership scheme

Last week at the Conservative Party conference the Chancellor announced a new equity ownership scheme. His proposed scheme, targeted at small companies, is entirely voluntary and cannot be forced upon employees. It would offer employees shares (from £2,000 to £50,000) in their business in exchange for certain employment rights. The shares are Capital Gains Tax free – which if the company grows extremely fast is a valuable offer.

The scheme has had a mixed reaction. However a few

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Vince Cable’s speech to LibDem conference

You can watch Vince’s speech to the Lib Dem conference here…


(Available on the BBC website here.)

Or you can read the text in full here…

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Vince Cable: Why the VAT rise had to happen

With annual borrowing of £160bn and a massive blank where Labour’s plans for deficit reduction should have been, this was always going to be a tough Budget – arguably the toughest since the 1980s. Some extraordinarily difficult decisions have been made to avoid an even worse crisis. Foremost amongst these was the decision to raise VAT from 17.5 to 20 percent.

Through the election campaign, all three prospective Chancellors were asked about VAT, and we all answered in exactly the same way: we have no plans to raise it, but we cannot rule it out. In fact, that was my position …

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Vince Cable on the Liberal Democrat Fairer Future Economic Recovery Plan

Gordon Brown’s response to the economic crisis has been too little, too late.

For years I warned him of the oncoming economic problems. Unsustainable levels of personal debt, mostly secured against the illusory ‘wealth’ of rising, vastly inflated property prices. An economy based so heavily on debt was never going to be in a fit state to deal with global shocks like the credit crunch.

And so it has proved. Gordon Brown is now facing the consequences of his years of inaction. The housing bubble has burst. Unemployment is rising fast. Tens of thousands of families are losing their homes.

With people struggling …

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Opinion: non-domiciles and tax

The Chancellor has performed yet another climb-down from his Pre-Budget tax proposals made in October last year, as a ‘clarification’ of proposals to tax non-domiciles was announced in order to correct previous ‘misunderstandings’.

Following fast on the heels of the Capital Gains Tax debacle, this most recent retreat makes the Government look thoroughly foolish. Once again it is painfully obvious that ministers hadn’t thought through the implications of their own policy plans.

The Liberal Democrats were the first party to highlight serious tax avoidance abuses by non-dom residents, and called for non-dom status to be limited to a specified number of years.  …

Posted in Op-eds | 17 Comments

Vince Cable: we will force a referendum vote in Parliament

Tomorrow the Liberal Democrats will table an amendment to the Government’s parliamentary motion proposing the Queen’s Speech. Our amendment calls for a referendum on Britain’s membership of the European Union.

This does not signal a change in our party’s attitude towards the Europe. We remain constructively pro-European, but we see this referendum as an opportunity to have a proper debate about the future of Britain’s relationship with the EU.

Over thirty five years as a member state, we have seen the EU widen both its membership and share sovereignty from Mrs Thatcher’s Single European Act through to a succession of …

Posted in News, Op-eds and Parliament | 32 Comments
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