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?
