Alex Massie Alex Massie

Vince Cable – Clever Chap; Hopeless Politician

The other thing to be borne in mind about the Liberal Democrats – apart, that is, from the fact that they betray proper liberalism every day – is that they’re hopeless at politics. Vince Cable’s proposals on freezing public sector pay, reforming pensions and increasing the personal allowance are actually all very sensible. Good policies in fact! Worth talking about!

So what does he do? Only ruin everything by proposing an absurd, back-of-a-napkin plan to tax large houses still further. (That the Lib Dems are, or used to be becauses, really, who can tell these days, in favour of replacing property taxes with a local income tax merely adds to the absurdity of the situation.) So, guess what gets the headlines? Surprisingly it’s not the sensible ideas.

This is elementary.

Meanwhile, it seems that Chris Huhne has decided that it’s probably not

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