Cable to PM: Makeme your Chancellor
would stop ‘the nasty tail of Rightwing MPs wagging the Tory dog’ if Cameron scrapes home. He denounces ‘horrendous’ public spending cuts proposed by Cameron and Osborne – ‘almost all affecting the disabled and working poor’.
But with Cable, the difference is strictly political, not personal. In the next breath he says: ‘Cameron and Osborne are highly intelligent guys and I respect their abilities. I have perfectly affable discussions with them. We don’t snarl at each other.’
His warm words for the Tories are all the more remarkable, bearing in mind that, around the corner, Conservative chiefs have sent extra teams of canvassers to Twickenham to try to ‘decapitate’ Cable.
No one seriously thinks they can overturn his 12,000 majority. Giving a timely reminder to local Tories in his middle-class constituency, home of the chaps of the English Rugby Football Union and Hampton Court, of his fondness for Dave and George will do him no harm. They don’t call him a wily old fox for nothing.
His criticism of Miliband is all the more wounding, sounding like a disappointed father or headmaster.
‘He could have done so much better and has made two really big mistakes. He should have said up-front on the financial crisis that we [the last Labour Government] screwed up seriously and done a mea culpa.
‘And I feel let down by his foolish plan to cut university tuition fees to £6,000. It is a low-grade response. He couldn’t resist a cheap soundbite at our expense. Very poor judgment. And his fiscal policy is so vague.’
Two days after the Election, Cable celebrates his 72nd birthday. Tall, tanned and languid, he looks lithe enough to reprise his dainty-toed appearance in Strictly Come Dancing in 2010. Yet, audaciously, the evergreen septuagenarian has set his sights on a new star turn – Chancellor in a Tory-led Government.
‘I’m up for having a substantial role. My prime interest is the economy. There are two economic departments in Whitehall and I’ve done one of them for five years. I’ll leave you to do the maths!’
It sounds highly unlikely. Certainly less likely than a Lib Dem leadership contest if, as some predict, Clegg loses his seat. Cable loyally insists his party boss will survive and vehemently denies he wants his job. But canny Cable can’t resist pointing out: ‘I’m quite a bit younger than Gladstone, Churchill and Ronald Reagan.’ All three led governments in their eighth decade. We can do the maths, Vince. ‘I’ve spent my whole political life fighting the Conservatives.’
How does he sit down with Tories he privately despises?
‘When we have a business meeting we put the guns at the door and sit down and talk,’ he smiles.
He complains of ‘nasty and vicious stuff’ from the Tories. And after one heated Cabinet verbal exchange with Defence Secretary Liam Fox, Cameron rushed up to Cable on his way out and begged him to keep it secret to stop the Coalition collapsing.
He describes another confrontation with junior Tory Business Minister Matt Hancock, an ally of Osborne sent to ‘spy’ on Cable. ‘He came to my office with a list of plum jobs he wanted. I said, “No, I’m the boss.” He was very cross, stamped his feet, got up and slammed the door.’
So how, and more to the point, why, does Cable want another five years of more of the same?
‘Because I’ve realised it is possible to be business-like with them. I can envisage a scenario in which I would stomach working with the Tories if the situation required. You have to let your head rule your heart.’
He knows full well the significance of what he is saying. ‘It’s important coming from me because I’m the one seen as having the least affinity with the Tories.’
Cable is also quick to make clear he does not rule out working with Labour. But he ‘envisages’ remaining in a government led by Cameron, not Miliband. Cable says he VINCE Cable prides himself on being the Tories’ bogeyman in the Coalition Cabinet.
‘I’m regularly voted their least popular Cabinet member,’ he says with his familiar hangdog smile.
Just as David Cameron and George Osborne privately describe Nick Clegg as a ‘closet Conservative’, they regard Cable a closet Labour politician. Not surprising, since he once was a Labour politician, albeit a councillor, in the 1970s.
Similarly, some Labour MPs fantasise that if only boyish Ed Miliband could have persuaded Uncle Vince, with his provincial bank manager’s air and twinkly peacock blue eyes, to defect, Labour would walk the General Election.
With Cable in charge of Labour’s spending plans, voters would stop worrying that would-be PM Red Ed might do something barmy.
But as we sit on the terrace of the quirkily named Barmy Arms pub by the Thames in his Twickenham constituency, Business Secretary Cable says something, which on first hearing, sounds even more barmy.
Not only is he ready to spend another five years helping the Tories run Britain, he wants to replace George Osborne as Chancellor.
‘Yes, I know,’ he shrugs, acknowledging the apparent contradiction,