Vince Cable attacks Theresa May's immigration goal and defends his talks with Labour

By Tim Montgomerie
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In an interview with the House Magazine Vince Cable has attacked Theresa May's ambition to reduce net immigration to the tens of thousands:

"The reducing to under 100,000 is not Government policy and it would be unattainable without, if it was attainable enormous damage would be done, notably through overseas students, which is one of the biggest components, actually.”

Mr Cable - on the Left of his party - also uses the interview to defend his regular conversations with Labour:

"I think we have to have sensible working relationships with the Labour Opposition. I’ve done this anyway not for partisan reasons, but because there’s a lot of issues which I deal with which spill over into future Parliaments - and if you want to get support for the industrial strategy or banking reform you’ve got to get the Labour people to agree to it. And in any event I don’t believe in tribal politics. I believe it is much better to work with a consensus when you can get one.  Clearly, there was a good working relationship but it all it tells us about the future is that when we come to the next general election we will be going into it with an approach based on equidistance."

The Business Secretary also gives the strongest indication that he plans to go on and on...

"I take the view that as long as you’ve got bags of energy and stamina and capacity to do the job and I do have a lot of energy and stamina, I’m perfectly fit and healthy... Deng Xiaoping totally transformed China in the last century. I think he was 80 when he took over. And he survived the Long March.”

There'll be more on the PoliticsHome website.