He’s the most left-wing member of the government. He used to work for John Smith. And this week he learned that he’s got just half as many staff as Caroline Spelman at DEFRA. It has become about as remarkable as pointing out that Gerrard and Lampard don’t really work together in midfield, but it’s worth saying one more time: Vince Cable is a walking resignation.
Add today’s news that, presumably just to annoy Cable, the government has signed up Sir Philip ‘sophisticated tax status’ Green as an efficiency adviser, and the truth is more obvious than the hangover Dave’s never had from the ‘tins’ of Stella he pretends to buy from a supermarket he’s never been to: Cable will walk.
Vince has already manoeuvred his ally Simon Hughes into the party’s deputy leadership; and the grassroots, who still worship Vince, are preparing to brand Gove’s free schools programme even worse than first past the post. But a conference bust up over a ridiculous right wing policy almost certainly won’t be enough to precipitate Vince’s resignation in 2010. So just when will it come, and how?
Here at Uncut we’re crowdsourcing the resignation. We’ll start the ball rolling.
It’s late autumn 2011 and the drastic cuts Vince never believed in have led to the fabled double dip he always feared. It is becoming increasingly apparent that Lansley’s NHS reforms should have been concluded with a rather more substantive paragraph than “we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it”. And the increasingly ubiquitous media presence of Toby Young is – amazingly – one of the least upsetting consequences of Michael Gove’s DfE.
Directly elected police commissioners have been the disaster everyone predicted, and Cable’s own department has been reduced to hot-desking whilst trying to save British business because Danny Alexander ‘needs’ a spare set of computers in case he breaks his by spilling Tizer all over them again.
As he arrives at his office, a downtrodden Vince is forced to cross a picket line of public service workers. He can’t help but feel that they have a point as they protest at Con/Lib plans to axe 98% of social service funding based on the flimsy big society thesis that “maybe a charity will do it instead…hopefully.”
As he walks towards his office Vince wipes the rotten tomatoes from his beige suit and the eggshell from his off-white shirt to discover the final insult. Nick and Gideon are there, in his office, high on a cocktail of port, pimms and power, smoking cigars and doing impressions of the once national treasure using Vincey’s own signed copy of Joseph Stiglitz’ “Stability with Growth” as a makeshift bald cap. As he slams the door he shouts “what the hell do you think you are doing?”, but it barely registers. The braying continues, a defeated Vince turns and leaves, never to darken the great offices of state again.
A broken man, Vince spends the rest of his days pondering one question: how did I let it happen. How did I join a government that contained Chris Grayling, Michael Gove and Iain Duncan Smith. It wasn’t even nice while it lasted.
Your turn.
How do you think the end will come? Bust up with Osborne, schism with Nick. Or an offer he just can’t turn down to fill the vacant presenters chair on Nevermind the Buzzcocks?
Tags: Caroline Spelman, Philip Green, resignation, Vince Cable
So, let me get this straight, a left leaning website wants to campaign for the most left wing Cabinet member to resign?
Truly, I will never understand the leftist mindset.
Vince’s resignation will probably be low key so he does not upset loyal Lib Dem members who support him. He will calculate he cannot hold his seat at the next election as he needs Labour votes to help him win. He will therefore say he is standing down at the next’election (like Paddy Ashdown) and therefore from the cabinet with immediate effect. Then he will be one of the first insiders to write a book about what happened behind the scenes. With thinly veiled critism for those he disagrees with most. Serialisation rights in a big hitting Sunday paper.
… and hopefully inspiring other Lib Dem MPs to stand down with him – other Lib Dems who won’t, then, strengthen the Con-Lib coalition… which might eventually lead to the fall of a part-Tory government. Right?
Politics was never my strong point and Boyf had to explain this to me the other day.
Still in fantasy land. There are far deeper divisons in Labour than among Libdems plus you have massive debts & we dont.
re paulbarker’s comments:
Labour finished the election raising more money than it spent and we now have 27,000+ new members.
Please can you explain the ‘unified’ Lib Dem position on VAT increases, trident, cuts to public services, do you all favour AV as a voting system?
All parties have differences of opinion but to infer Lib Dems are more unified than Labour at present is not reality.
I await the Lib Dem conference this year more than any other and it is not to hear Nick’s speech.
To be honest, the strain of what I imagine is daily and deep conflict is showing on him, and I would not be surprised if this results in illness or worse, rather than resignation – which would be very sad.
I understand, partly, why he is still trying to nail his colours to the mast of the coalition ship, but fear the costs for him will be great. By the way Breaker, it’s not hard to understand really, there needs to be at least one if not two high profile defections to open up the ranks and for others to follow. To hope that Vince will have sufficient influnce by staying in the cabinet is a pipe dream, so better for him to go.
@ Isla – at the minute you’ve got a leftie right at the heart of Cabinet. If Cable goes I don’t see the floodgates of defections you’re hoping for. By defections do you mean they’d join Labour, or just resign from Cabinet?
And if Cable does resign from Cabinet, how do you know he won’t be replaced by someone very right wing?
In any case, even if the lib dems do decide to back away from the Coalition Of Necessity, and force an election, if it’s done before Labour can elect a new leader you’re even worse off. Aside from the safe Labour seats, how are you going to attract floating voters with no leader in place?
Nope, Cable staying and keeping the Tory rabid right wing in check is the best thing for this government (and by extension, the country), by which time Labour might actually look like an Opposition instead of the current shambles. If Cable goes, then the result might not be what you were hoping for – be careful what you wish for.
To hope that Vince will have sufficient influence by staying in the cabinet is a pipe dream,
That’s kind of the current argument for us being in the EU, isn’t it? But that’s a whole different discussion.
No, hesslelabour, paul barker’s right.
Well, not about many things, but about the Lib Dems being united. After all, any of them who are still members of the party share one key characteristic: they’re Tories.
This appeared on Michael Crick’s BBC blog site today:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/newsnight/michaelcrick/2010/08/is_vince_cable_going_to_run_fo.html