HAD Vince Cable forgotten which party the Lib Dems are in a coalition with when he made his big Conference speech as Business Secretary yesterday? What he had to say would have gone down a treat with the Labour Party but it raised eyebrows among Conservatives and drew comments of harsh and inappropriate from business leaders.
He said he intended to look into the murky world of corporate behaviour and observed that Capitalism takes no prisoners and it kills competition where it can, as Adam Smith explained 200 years ago. But his most outspoken words were on the subject of banks - I make no apology for attacking spivs and gamblers who did more harm to the British economy than Bob Crowe (the rail union's leader) could achieve in his wildest Trotskyite fantasies, while paying themselves outrageous bonuses underwritten by the taxpayer.There may be a hidden agenda to explain these outspoken opinions which are somewhat to the left of any other Lib-Con thinking. When Mr Cable accepted the job of Business Secretary he understood that the chairmanship of a Commission on restructing Britain's banking business went with it. However he was quickly told that he and the Chancellor George Osborne would be co-chairmen -- an arrangement that may cramp Mr Cable's style rather. Perhaps his free-lancing yesterday was designed to make clear that he has strong ideas which he intends to make known publicly.
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