The Liberal Democrats’ sound money man

I met Vincent Cable recently at a dinner party with a mixture of City and business bigwigs: a few FTSE-100 bosses, a smattering of hedge-fund tycoons, the odd private-equity baron. The Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman was the only politician at the table and the debate inevitably focused on financial worries: the credit crunch, Northern Rock, the soaring oil price, foreign takeovers of British companies. There was quite a bit of hand-wringing by the business chiefs, but the shy, mild-mannered Cable gave as lucid and articulate a defence of open markets and free trade as I have heard from any political leader. It was impressive stuff — and afterwards I noticed that several guests went up to tell him so.

Since then, Cable’s stock has soared in Westminster and the City. As acting leader of the Lib Dems since the resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell, he has perhaps been lucky that the big political issues have all been in the economic sphere.