Blog:Well Said Vince
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Myles Aweigh, Political Correspondent, 21st December 2010
Vince Cable made a silly mistake in talking freely to strangers posing as constituents and who turned out to be undercover reporters. It must be a slow news day because when you look at what he actually said nothing should have been a surprise to anyone. Nevertheless it is being hyped out of all proportion. To the benefit of the Labour opposition who are completely failing when it comes to having anything credible to say about anything these days.
He is having battles with Cabinet colleagues and choosing his fights carefully. Big deal. I would hope so too. He is a Lib Dem in a Tory dominated Cabinet so of course he is going to have to fight not to be trampled and not to compromise his principles. If he was rolling over and giving way then I would be seriously worried that the Coalition was not doing the People’s bidding in bringing consensus to Government. I am proud of him for having those battles, proud that he says so. I am fed up with politicians who spout a pre-rehearsed line regardless of their true thoughts.
He could bring the Government down by resigning on a point of principle. True and we all know that already. Nice he realises it too and is prepared to use it if he has to. I hope he doesn’t have to use it but better that than an unfettered Tory programme. He is also a brake on his leader Clegg who seems altogether too far up Cameron’s bottom for my liking, and presumably the liking of many Lib Dem MPs and supporters. I support the Coalition because Cable is part of it and I trust him. He leaves on principle and so does my support and that of millions like me because it means, by implication, the Government is being unprincipled.
Have there been too many announcements and too little action? Yes, he’s right there too. The Government needs to calm down, take it steady to make the arguments with the People properly, and be in it for the long-term. The business over student tuition fees was rushed in, not properly communicated, and resulted in riots. The actual policy is better for students than any of the alternatives and most will be better off not worse, but does anyone realise that? No. This type of Government, because it is by its nature fragile and potentially unstable, needs to take its time and carry public opinion and to do that it needs to consult and discuss at length before arriving at radical policy decisions that can be misconstrued and deliberately misinterpreted.
He has declared war on Rupert Murdoch and News International. Fantastic news, someone has to do something about an Australian with US citizenship who uses his domination of the print media to impose his influence on British Government policy. Owners of UK media companies should either be resident in the UK or prohibited from political influence. We do not permit foreign residents to fund UK political parties because it is unethical. We should not permit foreign residents to influence elections in any other way either. And if you want evidence of that influence you only have to look at the history of party leaders sucking up to Murdoch to get endorsement from the Sun and Times newspapers. It is disgusting. So if Cable has declared war on Murdoch then great. Except he blew that one by showing his hand. Murdoch already knew and had him in his sights, make no mistake, but by declaring war publicly Murdoch could neutralise him, and sure enough Cable has been unilaterally disarmed in the conflict, replaced by a Tory who is doubtless grateful for News International support at the last election. So nice sentiment, silly mistake.
Cable is remaining in the Cabinet, despite the wolves baying for blood. Quite right, he is the most talented and principled colleague they have. Without him to fight the battles and declare war on unethical external influences the Coalition would be useless and would doubtless quickly collapse. All credit to Cameron and Clegg for realising that. Let’s hope they don’t falter and play to the Murdoch interests because by and large the Coalition has been a good thing.
Well done Vince. Wish you had said it properly in public than caught out by undercover reporters, and wish you hadn’t given Murdoch the ammo to knock you out of that particular battle but apart from that there is nothing to be embarrassed or apologetic about. A mistake that anyone except a politician could make. And the fact that you are a bit like a normal person not a practised politician is actually a good thing. Really it is.
23rd December 2010
News remains slow as evidenced by more Daily Telegraph shock revelations about Lib Dem ministers and MPs disagreeing with Conservative colleagues. The Telegraph, other newspapers, and the TV channels should be fined for causing environmental damage - wasting paper and energy on reporting the bloody obvious. The more they report the more confidence I have that my Lib Dem vote is being used to put the brakes on the nutcase element of the frankly untrustworthy Tory Party and ensuring only policies that have consensus and covered by the 60% electorate mandate the Coalition has are implemented. It disproves Labour's assertion that Lib Dems are passive passengers in a Tory car. We are used to majority governments and factionalism within a majority government is news. In a coalition government you start with two opposing factions that have to come together and compromise and agree common ground rather than highlight differentiators. The existence of factions and robust disagreement on policy and personalities is not news and the media have to adapt to a different way of doing government - they are out of touch with what happened in May 2010. The objective of the Telegraph is to undermine the Coalition and presumably they want a Tory-only government. But if they don't understand how coalition works then they have no chance - you can't split something that is not integrated, all you can do is highlight existing splits that we already know about and are happy that they exist - that is precisely why coalition government is excellent for the country. It stops any one group of idealogists imposing their minority view on the majority.
© Evrose, 2012
