Isabel Hardman Isabel Hardman

Lib Dem conference: Vince Cable says Coalition could end before 2015

Cabinet colleagues’ concerns over the housing bubble and immigration was only one facet of Vince Cable’s fringe interview this evening. What he told Steve Richards about the Coalition was also highly significant, and the biggest example of his freelancing to date.

Where Cabinet colleagues have previously insisted that this Coalition is built to last, Cable said it was ‘certainly possible’ that it could end before the general election, although he wouldn’t be drawn on the circumstances in which that would happen, or which issues could cause him to leave the Cabinet.

‘I think President Obama has illustrated very clearly in recent weeks the dangers of parading your red lines,’ he said, adding that clear read lines were already laid out in the Coalition agreement.

So we’re back to the ‘nuclear option’ that Cable threatened back in 2010. And another line from the Business Secretary, in case you hadn’t heard enough from him today.

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