Having previously claimed that the Liberal Democrats “didn’t break a promise” on tuition fees, Dr. Cable continues to make a fool of himself. Opposition benches guffawed at the unintended irony of his introduction to the fees debate:
“I will take interventions when I have developed an argument.”
This is a man who couldn’t decide whether to vote for his own bill.
Ladies and gentlemen, we are through the looking glass. The New Politics of Coalition™ means that members of the cabinet can abstain from voting on bills drafted by their own department!
Vince Cable explains why legislation following in the wake of the Higher Education White Paper may be “commended to the house” by a Tory junior minister:
“My own personal instinct – partly because I am the secretary of state responsible for universities and partly because I think the policy is right – is very much to vote for it.”
“My position is somewhat different, but I am willing to go along with my colleagues. We are a disciplined party: we work together. We are clearly going through a difficult period over this issue and we want to support each other.”
Everyone clear?
The Liberal Democrats are adrift in Ministry of Truth territory. In a pre-recorded interview to be broadcast on BBC One’s Politics Show at midday, Cable will tell the nation that his party “haven’t betrayed anybody”:
“We didn’t break a promise. We made a commitment in our manifesto, we didn’t win the election. We then entered into a coalition agreement, and it’s the coalition agreement that is binding upon us and which I’m trying to honour.”
This would be believable (barely) if tuition fees were not previously an article of faith for the Liberal Democrats and a cornerstone of their election campaign. The PR blerb for their – technically excellent – party election broadcast of 13 April (video) stated:
“Nick Clegg talks of the broken promises put forward by the Labour party and Conservatives, and that a vote for the Lib Dems means a vote for hope and an end to broken promises.”
And what was the very first visual used in the piece?
Cable can spend the next six months repeating “We didn’t break a promise” Hare Krishna mantra-style.
Scrapbook doubts voters will take such a generous view.
“Government to drop case against Chagos Islanders”, proclaimed the website of the UK Chagos Support Association. Phones rang, BlackBerrys beeped and emails pinged into inboxes as jubilant campaigners, some of whom had worked on the issue for decades, received the news. The New Statesman had published a letter from Vince Cable to a constituent, stating that “The Coalition Government are dropping the case [against those expelled from the Chagos archipelago by Harold Wilson's government] opting instead for a friendly settlement”.
But no sooner had the Chagos lobby began to celebrate than Cable’s department asked for the NS article to be pulled because the letter had been “issued in error”. Despite the sympathetic rhetoric from Tories and Liberal Democrats when in opposition, a Foreign Office spokesperson has since confirmed that the Coalition will continue to deny the Chagossians their rights:
“The Government will continue to contest the case brought by the Chagos Islanders to the European Court of Human Rights. This is because the arguments against allowing resettlement on the grounds of defence security and feasibility are clear and compelling. And we do not see the case for paying further compensation as this has already been paid in full and final settlement of all claims.”
The letter was yet another false dawn for those expelled from their homeland at the barrel of a (British) gun and saw Cable’s department attempting to lay the blame for the gaffe squarely on a “junior researcher” in his constituency office. When Scrapbook drew attention to the salutation, however, his aides conceded that the letter had in fact been signed by Cable himself:
Comparisons with government documents showed clearly that Vince Cable had signed the Chagos letter himself
The confusion around the drafting of the document had left the deflated Chagossians scratching their heads. As a signatory to a petition sent to then Foreign Secretary David Miliband only six months ago, Cable is on record as supporting the islanders’ case. In contrast with a copy-and-paste regurgitation of previous Lib Dem policy, the letter was clearly drafted by someone familiar with the case and after the formation of the coalition government. One campaigner told Scrapbook:
“To attempt to blame this on a researcher is plain shabby. The effect of his letter was to raise and then cruelly dash the hopes of the Chagossians. However this mistake was made, he signed the letter and should apologise for the hurt it has caused.”
One hopes that Dr. Vincent will bother to read what he is signing in future. Should the Business Secretary get a reputation for this kind of carelessness, lobby groups will be queueing round the block on Victoria Street:
Want something signing into law? Simply stick it under Vince Cable’s nose!
Those with an interest in the case of the Chagossians could do worse than watch John Pilger’s documentary Stealing a Nation, which is available for free on Google Video.
In his first post for Political Scrapbook, Nathan Trout casts a wry eye over a meeting of coalition minds.
Former Labour councillor Vince Cable is oftentimes rumoured to be one of the more uneasy members of the coalition, not entirely comfortable with the Tories’ cuts and small state agenda. One would imagine that he would make very uneasy bedfellows with a man who was a Tory chancellor before they ”detoxified their brand” with compassionate conservatism. But here he is yesterday on College Green, getting on with the architect of Black Wednesday like a house on fire:
So what were Saint Vince and Lord Lamont talking about? They both studied economics at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge and are only a year apart in age so it isn’t impossible they know each other from their student days. Perhaps it’s more likely, however, that they were musing at the content of yesterday’s budget.
Please allow Scrapbook to speculate on measures they evidently found so entertaining:
For Cable, there’s no distancing himself from a budget he claims to be “proud” of.
Perhaps he now takes Lamont’s view that “unemployment is a price worth paying”?
This is a few days old but kudos to Tom Harris for this one. A regular party election broadcast?
Just wait 30 seconds.
