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Tag Archives: vince cable

David Cameron poaches Lib Dem tax-cuts idea. (But that’s not half as annoying as the Tory ideas my party’s trying to claim.)

By Stephen Tall | Wed 7th August 2013 - 8:00 pm

It’s amazing how much more popular with David Cameron the Lib Dems’ flagship policy of taking the low-paid out of income tax is these days… Just today he celebrated delivering an income tax cut for 25 million people and lifting 2.4 million low earners out of tax:

There's still more to do, but I'm proud of what we're delivering #forhardworkingpeople pic.twitter.com/JRNqtxJzm3

— David Cameron (@David_Cameron) August 6, 2013

It’s all a bit of a contrast from the first 2010 televised leaders’ debate, when David Cameron argued the policy was unaffordable… unlike the Tories’ own proposals for raising the inheritance tax threshold to £1m or tax breaks for married couples, of course.

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged council tax, david cameron, immigration, localism and tax cuts (Lib Dem) | 16 Comments

LibLink: Jo Swinson on payday loans and meeting the Archbishop today

By Mary Reid | Wed 7th August 2013 - 4:40 pm

Yesterday Jo Swinson spoke about payday loans on camera to The International Business Times. We cannot embed the video on Lib Dem Voice, but you can watch it here.

She said that she and Vince Cable would be meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury, Rev Justin Welby, today to discuss new guidelines for credit unions. She stated:

My colleague and I, business secretary Vince Cable, are meeting the Archbishop of Canterbury on this issue. We are very keen that credit unions are expanded as they are important way of lending to a community that benefits local people.
…

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Posted in News | Also tagged archbishop of canterbury, credit unions, Jo Swinson and pay day loans | 3 Comments

What are your rights if stopped by Home Office officials in the street?

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 3rd August 2013 - 11:38 am

I don’t often swear online. It usually takes an immense act of stupidity from a Formula 1 driver to incite me to do so, and the last time I tried that, the Chief Whip told me off mere seconds later. So profanity, even mildly, in a blog post is very unusual, particularly when directed at our leader. Which is why I did my little rant about these burly Home Office types turning up at tube stations and conducting checks on people’s immigration status on my own blog.

This is the second Home Office show of disproportionate force in the last …

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Posted in News | Also tagged home office and immigration | 46 Comments

Vince and the Chinese Lib Dems: “West meets East at the Roux”

By Vicky Wong | Wed 17th July 2013 - 12:15 pm

Chinese Liberal Democrats Vice Chair Merlene Toh Emerson invited Vicky Wong, a freelance journalist, to attend the Chinese Liberal Democrats recent business networking event, attended by Vince Cable. Here’s Vicky’s account of the evening…

Dr Vince Cable MP, Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Business Innovation and Skills was keynote speaker at an “East-West Business networking event” organised by Merlene Emerson of the Chinese Liberal Democrats at the Roux at Parliament Square last week.

Dr Cable praised the work of Chinese Liberal Democrats and their role in promoting closer relations between the party and the Chinese and South East Asian community …

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Posted in Events | Also tagged chinese liberal democrats and merlene emerson | 4 Comments

Nick Clegg’s Letter from the Leader: “The Lib Dem vision for future economic growth and prosperity”

By Stephen Tall | Sun 14th July 2013 - 3:15 pm

The Lib Dem leadership — as I noted here yesterday — is determined to get on the front foot on the economy. This autumn will see a leadership-proposed motion backing further capital investment (“within the fiscal envelope”) while retaining the commitment to deficit reduction. Nick’s letter this week is coordinated with that message, and in particular the importance for growth throughout the regions of the UK. Here’s what he has to say…

On Thursday I visited the Toyota and Rolls Royce factories in Derbyshire to announce the

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged Danny Alexander, featured, letter from the leader and regional growth fund | 18 Comments

Vince: Deal on Mansion Tax vetoed “from above”

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 13th July 2013 - 11:58 am

If I have to be inside on a glorious Summer Saturday, I am glad it’s here at Social Liberal Forum Conference in Manchester.

Vince Cable has just done a highly informative session where he outlined key differences between us and the Tories on the economy. You can get the main points from following #slfconf on Twitter.

The whole speech deserves more attention than I can give it while half listening to another session, but I thought you would like to know that he confirmed that for last year’s Budget, he had a deal with Osborne to introduce a Mansion Tax if the …

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Posted in News | 29 Comments

Nick, Vince and Danny lead Lib Dem charge to “balance the books, find new ways to create jobs and growth”

By Stephen Tall | Sat 13th July 2013 - 12:01 am

Be warned: we’re under starter’s orders for the general election. Today, the Lib Dem leadership sets out its plans on the economy for approval by the party conference this autumn, striking a neat balance between a strong defence of the Lib Dem record in government and a recognition that much still needs to be done to get the economy growing.

The motion to be debated in Glasgow in September can be found at the foot of this post. Tabled by …

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Posted in News | Also tagged #ldconf, Danny Alexander, economy, featured, glasgow conference 2013, new statesman and nick clegg | 11 Comments

Vince Cable announces Royal Mail privatisation

By The Voice | Wed 10th July 2013 - 2:29 pm

Today Vince Cable announced, to no surprise whatsoever, that the Royal Mail is to be privatised.

Key points

This does not affect the Post Office – although options on mutualisation will be considered. No Post Offices will close.
A majority stake will be floated on the stock exchange
The 6 day a week flat rate service is set in stone.
10% of shares available for employees, free to the employee, to either give them a cash windfall or a say in how the company is run.

Why privatise?

Under public ownership there is simply not the freedom to raise capital in the markets. A share sale will

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged privatisation and royal mail | 32 Comments

Vince Cable opens massive biofuels plant

By Mary Reid | Tue 9th July 2013 - 11:53 am

For a picture of Vince Cable in a hard hat and hi vis clothing, check out the Yorkshire Post. He was opening a £350 million bio-fuels plant in Humberside, one of the largest in Europe.

The plant converts animal quality wheat into bioethanol which is then added to petrol to produce a greener fuel. This is in an area which has been described as the ‘wheat belt’ of the UK.

Vince Cable is quoted as saying:

Here we are turning an agricultural product potentially into very good fuel, blending for motor vehicles, creating environmentally

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged biofuels | 5 Comments

Vince Cable: UK single market is good for business

By Caron Lindsay | Tue 2nd July 2013 - 3:58 pm

Vince Cable has been in Edinburgh today to launch the fourth in the series of “Scotland Analysis” papers produced by the UK Government about the effect of independence for Scotland on a variety of issues. Today, the spotlight is on business regulation and the changes that independence would force on businesses both in Scotland and the rest of the UK with two separate regulatory systems to get round. The example Vince cited on a Radio Scotland interview this morning (which you can listen to here) was a simple one of buying petrol on either side of the border, …

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged business, Scotland, scotland analysis and Scottish independence referendum | 4 Comments

Danny Alexander MP writes… Spending where it matters

By Danny Alexander MP | Wed 26th June 2013 - 1:25 pm

Our number one priority in Government has been to fix the economic mess we inherited from Labour. Today, we set out a Spending Round that delivers Liberal Democrat priorities on investment and improving our public services while making responsible choices to deal with the financial problems Labour left us. It demonstrates that the Liberal Democrats will remain firm in our commitment to tackling the deficit, but fair in the way we go about it.

When we entered Government in May 2010, we inherited from Labour an economy that was on the brink. We set out a plan to get our economy …

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged childcare, comprehensive spending review 2013, nick clegg, pupil premium, social care and troubled families programme | 53 Comments

Vince vs Danny and Osborne?

By The Voice | Sun 23rd June 2013 - 1:46 pm

From the Observer:

Vince Cable is refusing to accept deep cuts to his departmental budget without a guarantee of billions in funding for job-creating capital projects, as arguments over this week’s spending review reached a new pitch.

With just three days before George Osborne is due to announce £11.5bn of cuts for 2015-16, the business secretary was said to be in no mood to back down in a dispute he regards as crucial to the government’s economic credibility.

Cable is arguing, in talks with Treasury ministers and officials, that the coalition must have “a strong story to

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged Danny Alexander, observer and spending review 2013 | 3 Comments

Labour play games on Robin Hood Tax

By The Voice | Wed 19th June 2013 - 1:28 pm

Labour’s attempt to force a vote on a financial transaction tax, outlined in yesterday’s Guardian, appears to be more of a ruse to embarrass the Liberal Democrats than a serious attempt to develop a consensus on the issue. The SNP used to habitually put forward motions in the Scottish Parliament aimed at splitting the Labour/Liberal Democrat Government. It’s just something that happens.

The reality is that things change on this over time, by painstaking negotiation, not by a mischief making motion in Parliament. We know that the idea of such a tax sits well with Liberal Democrats. Vince Cable has …

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Posted in News | Also tagged james graham, labour and robin hood tax | 13 Comments

Vince Cable: A million jobs for a stronger economy

By The Voice | Sat 15th June 2013 - 8:18 am

Vince Cable emailed party members last night kicking off the Party’s “A million jobs for a stronger economy” campaign. This is what he said:

This campaign will promote the fact that Liberal Democrats in Government have helped business create more than one million private sector jobs. Our ambition is to help create a million more new jobs.

Click here to find out how you can support the campaign.

I’m proud of our Government’s record on job creation.

Since 2010 we have helped create:

Jobs for young people – 1.2 million apprentices and 110,000

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged a million jobs campaign | 24 Comments

Ed Balls shifts Labour’s position closer to the Lib Dems: is this the start of a Lib-Lab realignment?

By Stephen Tall | Tue 4th June 2013 - 11:15 am

Ed Balls’ speech to Thomson Reuters yesterday grabbed headlines for its concession that paying a winter fuel allowance to the wealthiest 5% of pensioners could no longer be justified. The likely saving — at c.£100m a year, no more than a rounding error in the national accounts – may be modest, but the symbolism is significant.

This is Labour accepting (at long last) the new normal of austerity: current departmental spending will continue to be reduced in the next few years even as the long-hoped-for economic …

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Posted in News and Op-eds | Also tagged ed balls, featured, nick thornsby and vat | 27 Comments

Vince on dangers of immigration debate and encouraging women in business – he doesn’t seem to be in the mood for resignation

By Caron Lindsay | Wed 29th May 2013 - 9:17 pm

I thought it was supposed to be holiday season for MPs. Not for our Vince, it seems. He’s been everywhere the last couple of days. Today, the BBC reports, he has been making the point that all the hot air on immigration is going to stop the very people we need to boost our economy will be put off from coming here:

But he warned that the globalised world of university recruitment was in danger of being undermined in the UK by anxieties over immigration.

He said that the “politics of identity” which worried about immigration and the economic need for

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged bbc, huffington post, immigration, new statesman, spending review and women in business | 19 Comments

“Is the coalition government doing enough to encourage social mobility?”

By Stephen Tall | Thu 23rd May 2013 - 8:45 am

That was the question I was asked to answer for a new magazine, The New Idealist (available online here). Here’s what I said…

Social mobility: it’s a phrase much-beloved by politicians from all three parties. Who, after all, can possibly disagree with the fine sentiments of Nick Clegg in his social mobility strategy paper, Opening Doors, Breaking Barriers (April 2011)?

In Britain today, life chances are narrowed for too many by the circumstances of their birth: the home they’re born into, the neighbourhood they grow up in or the jobs their

…

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Posted in Op-eds | Also tagged education, featured, john goldthorpe, nick clegg and social mobility | 28 Comments

Vince on living in Africa, love against the odds and helping people

By Caron Lindsay | Sun 19th May 2013 - 8:59 am

Vince Cable has been talking to the Telegraph about his varied and interesting life. From meeting his first wife while both were working in a mental hospital in York, to their romance meeting parental disapproval and succeeding despite that, to his empathy with his constituents’ problems, it charts the key moments of his first 70 years.

Illustrated with photographs of items which mean a lot to him, including a recording of his son Paul performing at a concert in Prague. HE also confesses a liking for James Blunt.

As former MP’s caseworker, I completely understood what he said about how he is …

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Posted in News | Also tagged the telegraph | Leave a comment

Michael Moore MP’s Westminster Notes

By Michael Moore | Wed 15th May 2013 - 8:55 am

Liberal Democrat Secretary of State for Scotland, Michael Moore MP, writes a regular column for newspapers in his Borders Constituency. Here is the latest edition.

Vince Cable’s visit to the Borders

Over the past weekend, Vince Cable, the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, visited the Borders to speak at our local Lib Dem annual dinner and meet with businessmen and women from across the area.

On Saturday, we spent the morning at John Seed’s farm near Duns looking at the work he is doing, with his family, to diversify the farm and transform the way it generates and uses energy. It is hugely impressive to see the scale of what they have achieved through biomass and other initiatives. (Photo shows John Seed, Vince, his wife Rachel Smith, Mike Moore and Steve Jones)

Next, Vince and I met with a small group of Borders businessmen and women to discuss the challenges and opportunities that diversified farm businesses are currently facing. From issues such as bank lending to red tape, each member of the group raised their particular concerns and it was certainly a productive discussion. It was good to have the chance to show off some of our finest farms businesses and I will continue to work with Vince beyond this visit to get the best deal for Borders businesses.

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Posted in Op-eds, Parliament and Scotland | Also tagged Michael Moore and Westminster Notes | 2 Comments

Clegg leadership plot: Gove’s ‘crazy grenade’ detonates, briefly, before Tories revert to arguing about Europe

By Stephen Tall | Sun 12th May 2013 - 11:05 am

Hats off to Mr Gove! With the Tory party in its customary state of internecine warfare over Europe, the education secretary used his interview this morning on The Andrew Marr Show to allege a leadership plot to overthrow Nick Clegg. Here’s PoliticsHome’s account:

Michael Gove has suggested Nick Clegg’s opposition to increasing childminders-toddlers ratio is due to an internal Liberal Democrat plot to unseat him as leader.

Mr Clegg said last week that he was “yet to be persuaded” by the case for allowing staff to look after more children.

However Mr Gove today said the reforms, which were defended by

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged matthew oakeshott, michael gove and nick clegg | 32 Comments

The double dip recession that never was?

By Stephen Tall | Sat 11th May 2013 - 12:35 pm

Did the double-dip recession ever happen? It looks increasingly possible that it didn’t — the BBC reports the latest revision to the data:

A revision by the Office for National Statistics (ONS) has cast doubt on the UK’s double-dip recession last year. Revised growth estimates now suggest the construction industry shrank in the first quarter of 2012, but by less than previously thought. Analysts say the revision may be enough to mean the overall economy narrowly avoided falling into recession for a second time. The ONS is due to give official confirmation of this in June.

In fact there was a …

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Posted in News | Also tagged featured, hamish mcrae, niesr, office for national statistics, peter kellner and recession | 17 Comments

Vince Cable talks sense on immigration

By Caron Lindsay | Sat 11th May 2013 - 10:34 am

Vince Cable has spoken up for the economic benefits of immigration in the Queen’s Speech debate, challenging the half truth and hyperbole in the illiberal rhetoric that’s doing the rounds at the moment. He reserved much of his ire for the Labour party:

I was hesitant about raising the subject because it is essentially covered by the Home Office, but substantial economic issues are also involved and it is important to refer to them. I was provoked into feeling that we should debate the issue in this context because a couple of days ago I was on the radio on the

…

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Posted in News | Also tagged ed davey, hansard and immigration | 24 Comments

Vince in not-so-coded call for Lib-Lab cooperation

By Stephen Tall | Fri 10th May 2013 - 7:55 am

Vince Cable published an interesting piece in the New Statesman last month (I missed it at the time): My advice to young Lib Dems — rise above the tribalism.

It’s a biographical reflection on his political journey — from Young Liberal to Mr Wilson’s ‘White Heat’ Labour to the breakaway SDP and finally to the Liberal Democrats, where he joined “some of the descendants of Grimond and Crosland”.

However, it also has a very clear political message. At least, I think it does. Tell me below-the-line if you think I’m …

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Posted in News | Also tagged new statesman | 7 Comments

LibLink: 160mph Vince Cable stands in for Jeremy Clarkson

By NewsHound | Mon 6th May 2013 - 6:55 pm

Yesterday’s Sunday Times carried a treat for those of us who are Liberal Democrats and petrolheads. Jeremy Clarkson being “away” is seen by some as a treat in itself, but his replacement for this week was our Vince Cable.

Vince took an £150,000 Aston Martin Rapide S for a test drive during which he reached 160 mph. His criticism was as follows:

The car was more capable and felt quicker than my favourite Aston — the DB9 — although I was disappointed that it didn’t have

…

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Posted in LibLink | Also tagged aston martin, manufacturing and sunday times | 8 Comments

The Independent View: Rumble in the Jungle as Cable takes on Tarzan

By Ed Cox | Sun 5th May 2013 - 2:30 pm

After all the warm words and soft soap on Lord Heseltine’s No Stone Unturned report, in an interview with The Northern Echo, Business Secretary Vince Cable broke ranks this week and poured cold water on any great hopes of any significant new devolution deal.

In the Budget in March the Chancellor of the Exchequer offered general approval for Heseltine’s plans stating that more details of the government’s response, not least the amount of departmental funding that would be channelled into the Single Local Growth Fund, would be announced in June’s Spending Review.

Heseltine has identified departmental funding …

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Posted in Op-eds and The Independent View | Also tagged comprehensive spending review 2013 and michael heseltine | 3 Comments

Government changes its mind and makes caste discrimination illegal

By Caron Lindsay | Thu 25th April 2013 - 9:01 am

The BBC reports that Vince Cable has agreed to outlaw caste discrimination after the House of Lords twice voted on an amendment incorporating it into the Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill.

Those proposing the change argued that those considered to be of lower caste in some communities were discriminated against in employment or even at school. A government report from 2010 argued that a change in the law was the most effective way of dealing with this issue.

Liberal Democrat peer Eric Avebury has been at the forefront of the campaign to outlaw caste discrimination and has written about …

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Posted in News | Also tagged caste discrimination, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform Bill and eric avebury | 8 Comments

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