by Dan McCurry
If Labour are to form a coalition government with the Lib Dems following the next election, then I would rather deal with Clegg than Cable.
I think Vince Cable is trouble. I’m not talking about the right sort of trouble, such as a deep sense of conviction for the need of justice. I mean the wrong sort of trouble, such as being unpredictable, or so anti-capitalist as to be both divisive and ineffective.
What we want from the Lib Dems is to agree on what our policies are and then for both parties to stick to the common line. With Nick Clegg it’s easy to imagine this happening, but with Cable I wonder if it would be so easy.
Maybe it’s that Telegraph sting that bothers me. The one where the journalists flirted with Vince and got him to speak about the “nuclear option”. We greatly enjoyed reading that story at the time, but now I can’t help feeling uncomfortable about the sheer arrogance of someone who fantasises about destroying the government.
Or maybe it’s banking that bothers me? The reason the share price of these banks has stayed so low is due to the fiddling-about of government policy. Mostly quite pointless stuff. This “ring fence” between retail and investment banking has little consensus to it. Besides, it was mortgage lending that caused the crisis not casino stock markets.
