Peter Hoskin

Cable: Cameron put political gain ahead of national interest

While we’re on the subject of LibCon divide, it’s worth noting Vince Cable’s remarks to Andrew Marr this morning. The headline above is merely a paraphrase, but it’s pretty close to what the Business Secretary actually said:

‘It was largely political. Certainly the Prime Minister’s got a sort-of short-term boost from it, but it doesn’t actually deal with the long-term fundamental problems in Europe.’

Seems to me that there have been harsher words deployed this week, but few harsher sentiments. In the spirit of, erm, ‘getting on with my job as I always do’, Cable is going especially far in attacking his coalition partners.

Vince, as always, remains One to Watch in 2012 — and mostly for the wrong reasons. Sure, his ‘nuclear option’ has turned out to be more of a whimpering nothingness so far. But it’s also true that, among Lib Dems who have cooled towards the  Business Secretary, that ‘nuclear option’ may be the only way to restore his former reputation.

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