On ‘radical’ Jeremy Corbyn and writing his first novel
Writing a debut novel during his enforced sabbatical, Sir Vince Cable tells Tim Stanley he is now focused on fighting the Brexit Bill
Imeet Vince Cable outside a Mongolian yurt in Edinburgh. It would be hard to get any more Lib Dem than that, I think to myself. Yet, the location turns out not to have been his choice: the party’s new leader is in Edinburgh for the annual book festival, at which he has been promoting his debut novel. He arrives alone for our interview, sans spinners. Cable is the antithesis of superficial politics; open, straightforward, unsensational. He was born, of course, in Yorkshire.
Sir Vince (he was knighted in 2015) is the grammar schoolboy who rose to become chief economist at Shell, then business secretary in the coalition government. He started his political career as a Labour councillor in Glasgow in the Seventies, but in 1982 he joined the centrist exodus to the Social Democratic Party.
He entered parliament as a Lib Dem in 1997, only losing his Twickenham seat to the Conservatives 18 years later, on the party’s disastrous 2015 election night.
Suddenly finding himself “on an enforced sabbatical”, he decided to try his hand at writing a novel. After a lifetime of dealing in facts and figures, Cable relished the chance to “let my imagination run riot”. Politics was finished: “I didn’t expect to come back.” Then a plot twist: Theresa May called a snap election in April this year. Cable stood again and won – and was almost immediately elected, unopposed, as head of the ailing Lib Dems in the wake of Tim Farron’s resignation.
At 74, he is now the oldest party leader since Winston Churchill. His band of 12 MPS might be small but they are mathematically important. Tomorrow, the Commons meets to debate the EU Withdrawal Bill – also referred to as the Great Repeal Bill – which aims to put power for the nation’s laws back into the hands of our politicians and, according to the Prime Minister, make the UK an “independent sovereign nation”. But with the Tories lacking a majority, a cross-party coalition of Remainers could spell trouble. “The Liberal Democrats will fight to fix this bill,” says Cable, “and if it is not changed we will vote against it at second reading.”
What Cable thinks about Brexit is obvious from his novel. Open Arms is a thriller about an Anglo-indian arms deal. It is set three years in the future as the UK, decoupled from Europe, seeks its fortune in a world that has changed since the days of Empire.
“There is this illusion,” says Cable, “that if we leave Europe, the Commonwealth countries like India are just standing there waiting to embrace us; that they have this sentimental attraction to Britain.
“Nothing could be further from the truth. Britain isn’t part of their world view any more.”
The novel’s heroine, however, is determined to explore bilateral relations. On page 140, Tory MP Kate Thompson meets her Indian lover for a sexy assignation. “It only needed a few seconds to establish that neither was in the mood for polite, exploratory conversation,” writes Cable. “A dam broke, sweeping away their pent-up emotional and physical restraints.”
Cable has predicted that it won’t “win the bad sex award” because the bedroom antics are so discreet – and he’s right. Restraint is a word that sums up his prose: it’s John le Carré as told by the Inland Revenue. Cable is more John Stuart Mill than Edwina Currie.
Nevertheless, it is obvious that we’re reading something based on personal experience, not just of India, but of that tricky symbiosis of East and West.
His first wife, Olympia, was an Asian East-african. They met while working at a Quaker mental hospital in York, in the Sixties. “When it became clear that we wanted to get married, my father objected vehemently. He had very traditional views, in many ways a fine man, but a product of his age … [He had] a belief in white supremacy and Empire. My wife’s family reacted in the same way. I was the wrong colour, the wrong religion, the wrong caste.” Olympia was isolated by her relatives but they eventually thawed. “My father after about six years, when we had young children, decided to heal the conflict. He became very close to my wife, and later in life they had many shared values and interests.” Olympia died from cancer in 2001. Isn’t it a risk for a politician to share this kind of personal history with the public? Cable thinks it is good for democracy: “The better feel you have for the people ruling you, the better judgment you have for their abilities.”
What the public also knows, is that Cable can dance – and rather well. In a Christmas appearance on Strictly Come Dancing in 2010, he scored 36/40. His new job means he has less time to foxtrot, although he’s determined to keep it up partly because he thinks it’s a good thing to do with his second wife, Rachel, whom he married in 2004.
It’s probably this kind of human detail that makes many voters warm to Cable. There are no sound bites; what you see is what you get. He is also happy to concede the bleeding obvious: yes, the Lib Dems were damaged by their coalition about-turn on tuition fees, he admits. And, yes, Labour appears to have regained momentum among the young and middle-classes. But he is scathing about the longterm prospects of Jeremy Corbyn and John Mcdonnell, who he describes as “outside the mainstream of socialist and social democratic” thinking. Cable calls Corbyn “way more radical than Tony Benn”. Even “Bennism plus”. It is the closest I hear him come to an insult.
He does, however, welcome the fact that Labour has softened its position on Brexit, which has evolved from alleged support for leaving the single market to apparent enthusiasm for staying in. But I sense frustration with its refusal to be pinned down. Corbyn, says Cable, is “Sphinx-like”. So, the flame of true Remainerism must pass to the Lib Dems, who Cable will command like a guerrilla army: small but creating havoc behind enemy lines.
“My objectives are two-fold,” he explains. First, to try to “keep those aspects of the European Union which I feel are in the British national interest, ie the single market”. Second, to have a “popular vote” once negotiations with the EU are over “on whether we proceed or whether we go back to the status quo”. The 74-year-old is confident that he can cook up a Commons Remain vote of “50 per cent plus one”. And if he does get a second referendum, will he win it?
Any other politician would say: “Abso-ruddy-lutely”. Cable replies: “I’d have thought it’s 50/50.”
It all depends on how well Brexit
‘Jeremy Corbyn is way more radical than Tony Benn … Bennism plus’
talks go. “It’s perfectly possible that the Government could get a very good outcome. They may succeed in the three main elements of the divorce negotiations to get a decent settlement, and there may be a smooth transition to something that looks very much like what we have at the moment.
“If that happens, a lot of the steam is going to go out of the issue.”
Which all sounds very reasonable. Cable adds, however, that he would be “very surprised” if things do turn out well, and that everything he’s heard from “inside Government” predicts a “really quite bad outcome”.
“I’m not a fanatic about referendums,” he concludes, plainly not fanatic about anything. Cable’s measured tone is in contrast to the “we’re all going to hell” crowd within the Remain camp, and it makes his message more compelling. By amicably agreeing to disagree, he is probably far more likely in the long run to win people over to his position. And it is perfectly possible that under his leadership, the
Lib Dems – though they might not regain many seats – will regain some respect. Well, their chances have got to be at least 50/50.
Vince Cable’s Open Arms is published by Atlantic (£14.99). To order for £12.99 plus p&p, call 0844 871 1514 or visit books.telegraph.co.uk