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Jan 2, 2025 | 
ft.com | Vince Cable
The writer was UK business secretary from 2010-15Industrial strategy had, until recently, a rather retro feel.
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Nov 6, 2024 | 
inews.co.uk | Vince Cable
Sir Keir Starmer is painfully discovering that competent government involves painful choices and unpopular decisions. Today, student tuition fees. Tomorrow? Rail fares? Water charges? More taxes? One of Starmer’s smarter moves in opposition was to quietly ditch the commitment of his populist Labour predecessors to freeze, reduce or abolish university tuition fees. And, even more wisely, he avoided the disastrous mistake of me and my colleagues 15 years ago to make a well-publicised pledge on fees.
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Oct 28, 2024 | 
commentcentral.co.uk | Vince Cable
It seems certain that the government will increase employers’ national insurance since it has pledged not to increase employees’ NI. Taxing employers might seem more popular: ‘the bosses can pay’. But, in practice, employers’ NIs are a tax on jobs and will be passed back to workers or passed forward to consumers. Not clever. Economists and left-wing politicians tend to agree on the desirability of taxing dead people, especially those with large property assets.
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Oct 16, 2024 | 
odi.org | Vince Cable
Politics and immigration have become a toxic mix. Throughout the Western world we have seen ‘populist’ protest expressed through the ballot box or on the streets. There is one common element: hostility towards immigration in general and towards racialised communities. Policy-making and political narratives too have become increasingly restrictive and hostile.
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Oct 14, 2024 | 
burnesspaull.com | Vince Cable |Greg Clark
The Statutory Inquiries Committee of the House of Lords recently published a report on public inquiries and recommended a series of changes to the way they are set up and conducted across the UK.
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Oct 3, 2024 | 
economicsobservatory.com | Vince Cable |John Turner
JT: I wonder if we can start by looking back on your time in government and what you aimed to achieve as secretary of state for business, innovation and skills in the coalition government, 2010-15. How successful were the policies you were able to implement and what were the main constraints that you faced? VC:A big question! I have written a book that covers what I tried to do in government: Partnership and Politics in a Divided Decade, jointly authored with my wife, Rachel Smith.
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Sep 1, 2024 | 
msn.com | Vince Cable
Microsoft Cares About Your PrivacyMicrosoft and our third-party vendors use cookies to store and access information such as unique IDs to deliver, maintain and improve our services and ads. If you agree, MSN and Microsoft Bing will personalise the content and ads that you see. You can select ‘I Accept’ to consent to these uses or click on ‘Manage preferences’ to review your options and exercise your right to object to Legitimate Interest where used.
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Sep 1, 2024 | 
gbnews.com | Vince Cable
Rachel Reeves must be cursing the Treasury advisor who slipped into her briefing the suggestion that an easy, painless way to raise some money would be to means-test Winter Fuel Payments. After all, the public will understand that it makes no sense to give tax-free bungs of £300 to octogenarian billionaires and retired cabinet ministers. Won't they?
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Aug 20, 2024 | 
commentcentral.co.uk | Vince Cable
One of the political messages which did get through in the July General Election – thanks to Ed Davey – was the vital importance, but also the chronic neglect, of carers. There are an estimated 1 in 5 of the population who care, unpaid, for sick or disabled loved ones: a vast invisible army without whom society would literally fall apart.
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Jul 12, 2024 | 
politicshome.com | Sienna Rodgers |Vince Cable
3 min read
There is now a large contingent of Lib Dems in the new Parliament. My pre-poll guess, for what it is worth, was around 45 – as in the 1997 landslide election. The Lib Dems have exceeded their objective by delivering a record-breaking 71 MPs, leapfrogging the SNP to be the third-largest party in Parliament again.
This success is down to two factors.
