by Dan Cooke

What does Vince Cable have in common with Eric Pickles, Michael Gove and George Osborne? Oh, and Ed Miliband and Ed Balls too? Answer – they are all cursed by the iron law that their careers, like all political careers, will end in failure (or, at least, will be seen as a failure, whatever reasoned protestations to the contrary their future selves might make).

So, as renewed rumours have surfaced this weekend that Mr Cable is contemplating resignation when the independent commission on banking inevitably fails to deliver the radical restructuring he has called for, perhaps he should be sanguine about the harsh judgment that will, if he does so, be pronounced on his contribution to politics.

It is clear now that his resignation will be less a “nuclear” explosion for the coalition than the detonation of an ideological neutron bomb – devastating for his own influence, but leaving Tory and orange book values intact. Following the limp conclusion of “project Merlin”, maintenance of the status quo on bank structures would indeed be a sad anti-climax to the expectations fostered when Cable declared himself co-equal with the chancellor in banking policy.

It would represent a further blow to Cable’s reputation among former admirers after a miserable list of disappointments: his role in the tuition fee betrayal, the self-inflicted loss of responsibility for the Sky deal, the daily complaints that his department has no strategy for growth and its scrapping of regional development agencies (described by Mr Cable, as “Maoist and chaotic”, but allowed to pass all the same by this secretary of state). (more…)