Just as the Coalition hits its rockiest economic time, Vince Cable is back and he's on the warpath

By Tim Montgomerie
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At the end of last year Vince Cable rather embarrassed himself. Interviewed by an attractive young woman, posing as a constituent but actually an undercover Telegraph journalist, the Business Secretary became a little indiscreet. One of his indiscretions was to talk of his desire to declare war on Rupert Murdoch. Given Hackgate Mr Cable now feels vindicated... although some of us remain unimpressed that he didn't understand the sensitivity of the semi-judicial position he was fulfilling at the time.

His rehabilitation (at least in his own mind) comes at a sensitive time for the Coalition. Tomorrow we'll get the latest growth figures. They aren't going to be good. Osborne is going to come under enormous pressure to alter course on the deficit. No side of the political debate is happy with him. Ed Balls and Ed Miliband think (crazily) that the best way to survive a debt crisis is to increase debt further. A more serious critique comes from supply-side reformers like City AM's Allister Heath who warns that tax rises are throttling growth. As are the Coalition's green policies and additional regulatory measures.

Into this sensitive environment treads Cable. Yesterday he suggested Britain needed more quantitative easing. The FT (£) reports that he's ready to urge a tougher crackdown on the banks. His description of American Republicans as "right-wing nutters" suggests he is back to his combative worst. Last December Osborne could have hoped that Cable was a spent force. No longer. Cable is a man to watch in the next few days and weeks as the economic debate returns to centre stage.

Simon Hughes holds his fire over Cameron's Coulson meeting at Chequers, and attacks Blair instead

By Matthew Barrett
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Simon Hughes, the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, and a distinguished fellow of the Yellow B**tards League, made an interesting appearance on Sky News this morning - interesting because Hughes refused to blame Cameron for meeting Andy Coulson at Chequers: 

"I have to say, I think if you have a loyalty and an obligation to somebody who worked for you and did a good job, then whatever the implication might be, you might want honourably to support them and say "thank you", so I'm not going to be critical of the fact that David Cameron invited Coulson back once Coulson had resigned."

Hughes, in fact, did not just decide not to bash Cameron, he took a shot at Tony Blair:

"I'm much more critical of the fact that under the Blair era we knew, and this will all come out in the pubic inquiry, we knew that Blair flew just before the 1997 election to the other side of the world to meet Murdoch, we know that Tony Blair, three times in the ten days before the Iraq war was declared, was in touch with Rupert Murdoch"

You "can't trust the Tories with the NHS" says Lib Dem MP

By Matthew Barrett
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Yesterday, Nick Clegg declared victory - he got the NHS reform bill concessions he pressed for. Whether he believed in the changes he got is another matter. Nick Clegg is very much an Orange Booker: the Lib Dems' Orange Book advocated public sector reform and privatisation. David Laws, Clegg's friend and close ally, authored the chapter on health, and wrote this for the Independent in 2004:

"Finally, we have advocated introducing more choice and diversity into the NHS, with new providers and greater choice. In an essay published yesterday (in The Orange Book; Reclaiming Liberalism), I have explored whether our policy could be developed further in the future to offer even greater choice and diversity."

Unlike the Orange Book tendency, Lib Dems of the leftish, SDP variety, were ideologically opposed to the NHS reforms from the start. Their celebratory remarks at the watering down of the bill are therefore more useful as an indicator of how the Lib Dem backbenches and grassroots will be feeling. Arch-left-winger Evan Harris told Adam Boulton on Sky News:

"What I'm interested in is to know whether tomorrow it's going to be clear that those have been broadly delivered and I think it will be and I think what we're seeing tomorrow is not so much the detailed reaction to Steve Field's report but the announcement of what the deal is between the parties and I think we've got everything we've asked for and have been pressing for and we did that publicly, you see, we're a democratic party." 

Andrew George, the MP for St Ives, an early supporter of changes to the Bill (despite not voting against it at Second Reading), said: 

"Of course we should pat ourselves on the back for having forced an unprecedented pause in a major piece of Government legislation. It is clear that, had the Conservatives outright power, they would be railroading this Bill through Parliament without hesitation."

He also launched a robust attack on the Conservatives:

"I'm afraid we can't trust the Tories with the NHS. They brazenly ignored the Coalition Agreement before the ink was even dry. Tory promises on the NHS should be issued with a 'health warning'" 

Who's top and bottom of the Yellow B**tards League table?

By Matthew Barrett and Tim Montgomerie 

On Wednesday, we reported that Tory MPs at the 1922 Committee wanted to "get those yellow b**tards", in reference to Liberal Democrats who were criticising Andrew Lansley's NHS reforms, having voted for it before.

In today's Mail on Sunday James Forsyth writes that 10 Downing Street is at the end of its tether in having to deal with the Liberal Democrats. They agree one thing one day and then revisit that agreement the next day. "It is like negotiating with an Italian," reports James, "You think everything has been agreed and shaken on, only for the other side to start demanding concessions before the deal goes ahead."

So, who are the real troublemakers on the Liberal Democrat side of the Coalition? Here's a rough guide...

 

Vince Cable: Cable's time in office, as the Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills, has not been a happy one - for him or his Cabinet colleagues. He threatened to abstain on his own tuition fees policy, admitted he thought about resigning over his BSkyB gaffe, and also implied he might prefer life outside government. He called David Cameron's modest speech on immigration "very unwise" and, as Paul Goodman pointed out last week, business doesn't think much of him.  As Charles Moore pointed out last week in a devastating column the tuition fees policy has become a terrible dog's breakfast: students oppose the debt, the Treasury isn't going to save much money and universities won't get the scale of resources they need to deliver world class courses. Well done Vince.

Chris Huhne: After numerous instances of criticising Conservatives over the AV referendum, Huhne is certainly one of the Premier League's Big Four. He has threatened to sue his Coalition partners and likened the first Muslim member of Britain's Cabinet to Goebbels. His climate change plan, although diluted by the Chancellor, threatens to wreck Britain's economic recovery, as Nigel Lawson warned yesterday. If he survives his formidable intellectual skills will mean his environmental policies could become a massive political problem for Cameron but his immediate future rests in the hands of the Essex police.

Simon Hughes: Hughes, the deputy leader of the Lib Dems, frustrated the Coalition on tuition fees - by not committing to voting for, or against the policy, then criticising the plans, then abstaining on the vote, then agreeing to be a "social mobility tsar", and then criticising the policy some more. Outside of tuition fees, Hughes led rebellions against the rise in VAT and housing benefit cuts, and said Baroness Warsi was "inventing facts" during the AV referendum. Most recently, Hughes has opposed the NHS bill (that he voted for), and said it needed "fundamental" change for him to vote for it again.

Lord Oakeshott: He's not the highest profile Yellow B**tard but certainly, behind-the-scenes, one of the most dangerous. Personally close to Cable and tactically close to Huhne, Oakeshott attacked George Osborne as "incompetent" when he resigned as a Lib Dem Treasury spokesman earlier this year. "He hates Tories," said one ConHome source and is stirring up opposition in the upper house to the Coalition's NHS and police commissioner plans.