The saddest politician in England

Nick Clegg’s time as the country’s darling was always likely to be fleeting. But poor Vince Cable was consistently feted as the man who got it right on the economy. But he has looked miserable from the moment he entered government. Why is this?

I can’t be the only politico to have heard Vince say before 2010 that he would never enter government with the Tories. Oddly enough, he was far more polite about them than he has been on the radio this morning. The whole point about two-party politics is that it is tribal and ruthless, although anyone who has crossed sword with the Lib Dems at a local level will know that they have their own version of brutality reserved for their enemies.

The point is that there are certain senior Liberal Democrats who should never have accepted government posts and Vince Cable is one of them.

The Lib Dems have no one but themselves to blame for this week’s results.