Why is Vince Cable so liberal towards Chinese illiberalism?

On Monday, Vince Cable appeared on Nigel Farage’s ‘talking pints’ segment on GB News. This, if you haven’t seen it, is where Farage places a guest in front of a pint of beer while having his own and the two figures talk politics for a quarter of an hour. Really, it’s like any other political segment on a British news channel, only with Farage and alcohol involved.

It started off well for Vince. Farage asked him about the coalition, and unlike most Lib Dem politicians who would have unveiled a litany of apologies for that government having ever come into existence, Cable staunchly defended it. ‘As a government, it worked well. We didn’t necessarily like each other politically, but we were grown-ups and we worked well together.’ This sort of thing is not heard from Lib Dem figures enough and was refreshing.

However, there was a spectre looming throughout the interview, that being the thorny subject of China.