Sir John Vincent Cable (born 9 May 1943) is a British politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 to 2019. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Twickenham from 1997 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills and President of the Board of Trade from 2010 to 2015.
Cable studied natural science and economics at Cambridge, and after graduation was an Overseas Development Institute (ODI) Fellow working as a finance officer in the Kenya Treasury under President Jomo Kenyatta. He then lectured in economics at Glasgow University and obtained a PhD studying part-time. He worked in the Diplomatic Service; directed research at the ODI; was a Special Adviser to the Commonwealth Secretary-General; headed the international economics programme at Chatham House; and worked for Shell Group Planning, becoming Chief Economist.
Politically, Cable was initially active in the Labour Party and served as a Glasgow City councillor in the early 1970s. He later served as special adviser to then-Trade Secretary John Smith. In 1982, he defected to the newly formed Social Democratic Party, which later merged with the Liberal Party to become the Liberal Democrats. After standing unsuccessfully for Parliament four times in Glasgow, York (twice) and Twickenham, he was elected for Twickenham in 1997. He was quickly appointed the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, and was later elected as Deputy Leader in 2006. Cable resigned from both of these positions in May 2010 after being appointed as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the coalition government. He lost his seat in 2015, although later regained it in 2017. Cable subsequently stood in the leadership election to replace Tim Farron, and was elected unopposed.
In May 2019, Cable led the Liberal Democrats to their best national electoral performance since the 2010 election, gaining fifteen seats in the European Parliament election. This followed a campaign in which the party ran on an anti-Brexit platform. He subsequently announced his intention to retire from politics, and stood down as leader on 22 July 2019, upon the election of Jo Swinson; he stood down from Parliament at the 2019 general election. After leaving parliament, Cable was a visiting professor in Practice at the LSE and a distinguished fellow at the ODI. He was appointed vice-president of the European Movement in 2022. He is a company director: chair of Element 2, the hydrogen infrastructure company and chair of the e-freight 2030 consortium.
Contents
Early life and education
Cable was born in York, to a Conservative-supporting family. His father started his working life as a craftsman at Rowntree's and became a lecturer in Building Science at York Technical College. He became a leading figure in his Union (the NAS) and in apprenticeship training. His mother, Edith, initially packed chocolates at Terry's and later became a York Minster guide.
Cable attended Poppleton Road primary school and Nunthorpe Grammar School (now Millthorpe School) where he became Head Boy. He then attended Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he initially studied Natural Sciences and later switched to Economics. He was the President of the Cambridge Union in 1965. He was also a committee member and later President-elect of the Cambridge University Liberal Club, but he resigned from the Liberal Party before taking up the office of President. Whilst at Cambridge, he was a contemporary of the Cambridge Mafia. In 1966, at the end of his studies at the University of Cambridge, Cable was appointed as an Overseas Development Institute Fellow (ODI Nuffield Fellow) working in Kenya.
He graduated in 1973 with a PhD in Economics from the University of Glasgow on economic integration and industrialisation, studying part-time while lecturing at the university. He was awarded an Honorary Doctorate at Kingston University in 2023.
Economics career
After leaving Cambridge, from 1966 to 1968, Cable worked as a Finance Officer in the Kenya Treasury. Then, while lecturing at Glasgow on international economics, under Professor Alec Nove, he conducted research on economic integration working on the newly formed Central American Common Market. He was then seconded to the Diplomatic Service as a 1st Secretary working under Hugh Carless in the Latin American Department of the Foreign Office including a period attached to the CBI responsible for trade missions to South America.
He then directed research at the Overseas Development Institute working mainly on trade policy and economic development in India writing Protectionism and Industrial Decline, The Commerce of Culture and on EU trade policy. During this period, he served as Special Adviser to John Smith when the latter was Trade Secretary; a consultant to the World Bank on trade policy, working with Bela Balassa and Helen Hughes; and India author for the Economist Intelligence Unit.
He went to work, in 1983, as Special Adviser to the Commonwealth Secretary General, Shridath 'Sonny' Ramphal. He oversaw the work of expert groups on debt and on climate change and work on international capital markets leading to the establishment of the Commonwealth Equity Fund. He published, with B. Persaud, Developing with Foreign Investment.
Cable served in an official capacity at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting of 1983 in Delhi, witnessing "private sessions at first hand" involving Indira Gandhi, then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Lee Kuan Yew, and Bob Hawke among others. He was also present at the summits of 1985, 1987, and 1989. In the same period, he contributed to the Brandt Commission, the Palme Commission, and the UN's Brundtland Commission.
From the 1980s onwards, Cable authored and co-wrote numerous publications in favour of globalisation, free trade, and economic integration such as Protectionism and Industrial Decline, The Commerce of Culture, and Developing with Foreign Investment.
Cable worked, in Group Planning, for the oil company Royal Dutch Shell from 1990 to 1997, serving as its Chief Economist between 1995 and 1997. His role at Shell came under scrutiny as the company was accused of playing a role in a turbulent era of Nigerian politics during the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha.
Political career
Early years
His early life and career is detailed in the book Free Radical. At university, Cable was a member of the Liberal Party but then joined the Labour Party in 1966. In 1970, he contested Glasgow Hillhead for Labour, but failed to unseat the sitting Conservative MP, Tam Galbraith. The same year, Cable stood for election to the Corporation of Glasgow in the Partick West ward, but failed to be elected. He became a Labour councillor in 1971, representing Maryhill ward, and stood down in 1974. He was a contributor to Gordon Brown's The Red Paper on Scotland. In 1979, he sought the Labour Party nomination for Hampstead, losing to Ken Livingstone, who was unsuccessful in taking the seat.
In February 1982, he defected to the recently created Social Democratic Party (SDP). He was the SDP–Liberal Alliance parliamentary candidate for his home city of York in both the 1983 and 1987 general elections. Following the 1988 merger of the SDP and the Liberal Party, he finished in second place at the 1992 general election to Conservative MP Toby Jessel in the Twickenham constituency, by 5,711 votes.
Member of Parliament (1997–2015)
Cable entered the House of Commons after defeating sitting Conservative MP Toby Jessel in the Twickenham constituency in his second attempt, at the 1997 general election. In his first term, he was a member of the Treasury Select Committee and campaigned for the victims of financial scandals (as with Equitable Life) and for Save Our Building Societies. He later chaired the All-Party Group on the Police and for Victims of Crime. He subsequently increased his majority at the elections of 2001, 2005 and increased still further in 2010. He lost his seat in 2015, but regained it at the snap election in 2017.
In 2004, Cable was a contributor to the economically liberal Orange Book, which advocated for policies such as greater private sector involvement in higher education and healthcare. However, he has described himself as being a social democrat, as well as an "open markets" liberal, and stated his desire to reconcile "economic liberalism with wider moral values and social justice".
Following the Orange Book, Cable was one of several Lib Dem MPs who oversaw the party's shift towards economic liberalism with the adoption of a more free market approach, a development which was suggested by some as having helped lead to the 2010 coalition with the Conservatives. In 2005, as Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, he suggested the possibility of the party dropping its commitment to a 50p top rate of income tax, supported exempting people on low income from income tax completely, and explored the possibility of a flat tax, with the former two proposals later becoming party policy. Also in 2005, he said that there was no future for the Liberal Democrats to the left of New Labour. He was critical of what he considered the Labour government's slow response to cutting government waste, later accusing Labour of allowing a "writhing nest" of quangos to develop.
Prior to the 2005 Liberal Democrat party conference, Cable did not rule out the possibility that the Lib Dems might form a coalition government including with the Conservatives in the event of a hung parliament at the forthcoming general election. However, party leader Charles Kennedy said that the Lib Dems would remain an "independent political force".
In late-2005 or early-2006, Cable presented Charles Kennedy a letter signed by eleven out of the twenty-three frontbenchers, including himself, expressing a lack of confidence in Kennedy's leadership of the Liberal Democrats. On 5 January 2006, because of pressure from his frontbench team and an ITN News report documenting his alcoholism, Charles Kennedy announced a leadership election in which he pledged to stand for re-election. However, he resigned on 7 January. Cable did not run for the party leadership, instead supporting Menzies Campbell's candidacy.
Deputy Leadership of the Liberal Democrats (2006–2010)
Cable won plaudits for his repeated warnings and campaigns on the high level of personal debt in Britain. His was a significant voice of criticism during the Northern Rock crisis, calling for the nationalisation of the bank, capitalising on the claimed indecisiveness of both the Labour Government and Conservative Opposition on the issue.
In May 2010, Cable declared his resignation as Deputy Leader to dedicate more time to his Cabinet role as Business Secretary. His responsibilities and authority were somewhat reduced when it was revealed in December 2010 that he had boasted to Daily Telegraph reporters posing as constituents of his "nuclear option" to bring the government down by his resignation. Still worse, he claimed to the reporters that he had "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation despite having the responsibility to impartially arbitrate on the News Corporation bid to acquire the remaining 60.9% of BSkyB it did not already own. Amid cries for his resignation or sacking, all his responsibilities concerning the bid were removed. Cable did not resign.
Following the resignation of Sir Menzies Campbell as Party Leader on 15 October 2007, Cable being Deputy Leader automatically succeeded him as Party Leader, pending a leadership election. He declined to stand for leader, reportedly fearing ageism (Campbell's critics were accused of ageism, and Cable was only 2 years his junior).
Cable received significant acclaim during his tenure as Acting Party Leader, with particular praise for his strong performances at Prime Minister's Questions. He was popular in the party and media for his attacks on the government's record over Northern Rock, HMRC's loss of 25,000,000 individuals' child benefit data and the party funding scandal surrounding David Abrahams' secret donations to the Labour Party. The latter attracted for Cable positive media attention for a joke at PMQs describing Gordon Brown's "remarkable transformation in the last few weeks from Stalin to Mr. Bean, creating chaos out of order rather than order out of chaos", called by The Economist, "the single best line of Gordon Brown's premiership".
Cable is credited by some with prescience of the 2008 financial crisis. In November 2003, Cable asked Gordon Brown, then-Chancellor, "Is not the brutal truth that ... the growth of the British economy is sustained by consumer spending pinned against record levels of personal debt, which is secured, if at all, against house prices that the Bank of England describes as well above equilibrium level?" Brown replied, "As the Bank of England said yesterday, consumer spending is returning to trend. The Governor said,
Coalition government minister (2010–2015)
At the 2010 general election Cable was again returned as MP for Twickenham. With the election resulting in a hung parliament, Cable was a key figure in coalition talks, particularly the unsuccessful negotiations with the Labour Party. He strongly favoured working with Gordon Brown and reluctantly acquiesced in the decision to go with the Conservatives instead. The Liberal Democrats entered a coalition agreement with the Conservative Party on 11 May 2010, and Cable was appointed Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills on 12 May. The Queen approved his appointment as a Privy Counsellor, and he formally joined the Privy council on 13 May 2010.
The major issue in which he was engaged at the outset of the Coalition was bank reform: setting in train the splitting of high risk investment banking from retail banking (which, following the Vickers Report on banking, was implemented in the form of 'ringfencing').
One of the major disagreements within the Coalition was over tax. In May 2010, Cable insisted the coalition government was not split over planned increases to non-business Capital gains tax, which some thought would raise taxes on sales of second homes by 40% or 50%. Senior Conservative MPs attacked the rise as a tax on the middle-classes and a betrayal of Conservative values. Cable said that it was a "key" part of the coalition deal and there was no disagreement over it between the coalition partners. Cable said the changes to Capital Gains Tax would help to fulfill the Lib Dem aim of bringing more "fairness" to the tax system: "It's very important that we have wealth taxed in the same way as income." He continued,
At present it is quite wrong and it is an open invitation to tax avoidance to have people taxed at 40% or potentially 50% on their income, but only taxed at 18% on capital gains; it leads to large scale tax avoidance so for reasons of fairness and practicality, we have agreed that the capital gains tax system needs to be fundamentally reformed."
In May 2010, Cable declared his resignation as Deputy Leader to dedicate more time to his Cabinet role as Business Secretary. His responsibilities and authority were somewhat reduced when it was revealed in December 2010 that he had boasted to Daily Telegraph reporters posing as constituents of his "nuclear option" to bring the government down by his resignation. Still worse, he claimed to the reporters that he had "declared war" on Rupert Murdoch of News Corporation despite having the responsibility to impartially arbitrate on the News Corporation bid to acquire the remaining 60.9% of BSkyB it did not already own. Amid cries for his resignation or sacking, all his responsibilities concerning the bid were removed. Cable did not resign.
Post-ministerial career
Cable lost his seat, previously considered safe – with a majority of 12,140 – to the Conservative candidate Tania Mathias at the 2015 general election. Mathias won with a majority of 2,017 votes. He had the longest tenure as President of the Board of Trade since that of Peter Thorneycroft, which ended in 1957.
Return to parliament
Cable announced on 18 April 2017 his intention to stand for his former seat of Twickenham at the snap general election. In May 2017, Cable urged Liberal Democrat supporters to vote tactically for Ealing Central and Acton Labour candidate Rupa Huq. At the election, he was successful in winning back his former seat, with a majority of 9,762 votes.
In a cross-party effort shortly after the election, Cable along with former Labour Party Leader Ed Miliband and veteran Conservative MP Ken Clarke made a joint submission to Ofcom, opposing 21st Century Fox's takeover bid of Sky.
Following Tim Farron's resignation as leader of the Liberal Democrats, Cable announced his candidacy in the subsequent leadership election.
In July, he called for pro-EU MPs to support and "rally around" Chancellor Philip Hammond.
Leader of the Liberal Democrats
On 20 July 2017, Cable became leader of the Liberal Democrats after facing no competition. He was the oldest leader of a major UK political party since Sir Winston Churchill.
Policies
In a manifesto released upon his ascent to leadership, Cable revealed his policy priorities as Liberal Democrat leader would include tackling inequality, improving public services, opposing Brexit, electoral reform and young people.
In late 2017 Cable revealed that he had become "more interventionist" economically due to experiences while in the Coalition government. Subsequently, Cable has called for the blocking of several foreign takeovers of UK companies in the technology sector, and for the reform of UK takeover laws in the form of the 'Cadbury Clause' that had been suggested by figures within the Conservative Party. Following the leak of the Paradise Papers, Cable commented that direct rule of Crown Dependencies should be threatened if substantial progress was not made in curbing aggressive tax avoidance.
In September 2017 Cable echoed Foreign Secretary Boris Johnson in calling for greater taxation of foreign speculators in the housing market. He has also called for the reform of empty dwelling management orders.
In an 8 November 2017 pre-Budget speech at the City of London, Cable announced the Liberal Democrats under his leadership would seek to revive the fiscal Golden Rule of former Labour Chancellor Gordon Brown.
In early 2018, Cable's leadership saw former Conservative donors Peter J Stringfellow and Charlie Mullins switch and pledge their support to Cable and the Liberal Democrats over Brexit.
On education, Cable has rejected cutting or abolishing university tuition fees. He has instead announced that he would seek to implement lifelong learning accounts which would serve as endowments to all young people to help pay for education or training at any future date, and suggested this endowment could range from £5,000 to £10,000 per head (the average university student debt in England is £50,800 upon graduation as of 2017), costing around £10 billion a year. Cable claimed the policy could be funded from reform of capital gains, inheritance, and property taxes. Also on education, he proposes to abolish the Ofsted inspectorate and reform school league tables to focus on pupil well-being rather than exam results because a “change in emphasis” is needed away from competition. He supported the February 2018 USS strikes, calling for the government to underwrite lecturers' pensions, while refusing to cross a picket line at the Cass Business School.
Commentary
Electorally, Cable asserted that the Liberal Democrats under his leadership would win over substantial numbers of younger Labour voters "when the penny drops" about Labour's stance on Brexit, and that "young supporters will soon notice". Aside from Brexit, he claimed that adopting and pitching policies like higher taxation of wealth would also help in winning over Labour voters. Despite this, the Liberal Democrats under Cable's leadership drew observations from numerous political commentators such as Stephen Bush of New Statesman and John Rentoul of The Independent who noted that Liberal Democrat national polling had remained static even with significantly negative public perceptions of both the Labour and Conservative parties. Rentoul, as well as politics historian Glen O'Hara pointed to traditional and once potential Liberal Democrat voters Cable might wish to target as now having become solidly Labour voters. The Times Red Box editor and columnist Matt Chorley, in assessing Cable's leadership, wrote how there was already a "grey-haired nasal leftie running an opposition party" (in reference to Jeremy Corbyn) and therefore Cable was not needed.
Cable has received significant critical commentary surrounding his leadership of the Liberal Democrats in terms of policy proposals and stances. In particular, Cable's support for a second referendum on membership of the European Union and his comment that older Brexit voters were driven by nostalgia were met with negative reactions from the likes of broadcaster Julia Hartley Brewer, government Cabinet member Sajid Javid, and others. However, some in the media have expressed agreement with Cable's position on Brexit. Other policy, such as punitive taxation of foreign housing investors was criticised by the Adam Smith Institute think tank. The Financial Times considered Cable to be part of a "coalition of anti-capitalists" due to his calls for foreign takeovers of British companies to be blocked, and in The Daily Telegraph his policies were likened unfavourably to those of the Labour Party. Political journalist Andrew Rawnsley of The Observer was critical of Cable's general approach but conceded the possibility of Cable's anti-Brexit policy paying off eventually.
On 7 September 2018, after suffering a minor stroke, Cable announced his intention to resign as leader of the Liberal Democrats. He initially said he would resign once Brexit has been resolved or stopped, and when his proposed party reforms had been accepted, but in March 2019, he said that he would resign in May 2019 after the local elections. In the event, he presided over the best Lib Dem council elections for two decades, gaining 700 seats and 11 councils research. He adopted the slogan 'Bollocks to Brexit' in the June European elections when the Lib Dems won 16 seats with 20% of the popular vote. Following the 2019 European Parliament election in the United Kingdom, he confirmed on 24 May that he would stand down on 23 July 2019.
Views
Cable has compared himself to centrist French President Emmanuel Macron, saying that as Business Secretary he had worked with Macron (then an economy minister) personally and that they have a "very similar" approach. He believes his party should occupy the "vast middle ground", likening the political conditions of the UK with those of France. Cable asserts that there is an "appetite" for "middle-of-the-road politics" which he claims he can provide, and has decried what he sees as the mistreatment of “middle-of-the-road Brownite type” politicians like Tom Watson by the "hard left" within the Labour Party.
He is a supporter of the Social Liberal Forum, a centre-left group within the Liberal Democrats.
Trade
In office and in his writings he has consistently defended an open trading system and the liberalisation of trade globally, regionally (in the EU Single Market) and bilaterally. Working with Ken Clarke, he supported the proposed Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership trade agreement (TTIP), saying in 2014 that "if you are a true believer in free trade then you want to trade more with the US." To critics such as trade unions he replied that he was "genuinely baffled" about their fears that TTIP would lead to the privatisation of the NHS, adding that TTIP had "nothing to do with allowing the Americans to interfere with our NHS". In 2018, concerning the possibility of US-UK trade deal which might follow the United Kingdom's future exit from the European Union, Cable warned that a trade deal in such circumstances might involve agreeing to open up the NHS to private American healthcare firms. Cable claimed this was unlike TTIP in which public services were to remain protected and therefore he argued the UK should remain in the EU. Cable also warned that a post-Brexit trade deal with the US might lead to accepting lower standards in farming produce, less food being produced in the UK and less employment for farmers.
Cable thinks free trade is not a zero-sum game and that it is mutually beneficial for nations, stating: "Countries are better off when they participate in specialisation, with consumers benefiting from greater choice, higher quality products, and lower prices." He has condemned British and American politicians such as Donald Trump who he claims exploit the "anger and fear" over potential job losses which may result from foreign trade competition.
Human rights
In May 2018, Theresa May welcomed Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan to the United Kingdom for a three-day state visit. Erdoğan declared that the United Kingdom is "an ally and a strategic partner, but also a real friend." Cable denounced the visit, saying that "The UK has a strong, proud history of democracy and human rights, but our reputation on the world stage is in danger of being eroded by this Conservative government’s desire to woo world leaders like [Donald] Trump and Erdoğan. May’s administration appears to have substituted diplomacy for sycophancy in its pursuit of Brexit." Cable said that Erdoğan "is responsible for alarming oppression and violence."
In response to the murder of the Saudi opposition journalist Jamal Khashoggi, Cable said: "This situation gets murkier and murkier. The Government should have already suspended arms export licences to Saudi Arabia given the outrages in Yemen. This reinforces the argument for loosening the bonds to the regime."
Taxation and economy
As an economist, Cable considers Adam Smith and John Maynard Keynes to be his heroes, recommending Smith's The Wealth of Nations and Robert Skidelsky’s Life of John Maynard Keynes to novice economists.
He has been a proponent of greater capital spending, or borrowing to invest, and has made the case for this several times during and after the 2010-2015 coalition government.
Cable has called the demutualisation of building societies "one of the greatest acts of economic vandalism in modern times".
Cable supports the continuation of the Liberal Democrat policy of a hypothecated 1p rise in income tax to pay for improved health and social care, along with proposals for replacing national insurance taxes with a likewise hypothecated new NHS and social care tax . He has also voiced support for a wealth tax to raise £15 billion or the equivalent of “less than one-third of 1pc of household wealth, net of debt” which would be used to address "intergenerational inequality." He is widely credited with introducing the idea of a mansion tax in 2009 based on applying a higher tax on properties worth over £1 million: in effect, a tax of 0.5% of the value. The idea has subsequently become the basis for proposals for rebanding.
Cable has been critical of the National Living Wage (the UK system of minimum wage), arguing in 2015 that smaller businesses would struggle to pay employees higher rates.
He has called for companies Google, Amazon, and Facebook to be broken up, and supports the introduction of a digital services tax on technology companies.
New party
Cable has held differing views over time on the possibility of a new party emerging which could involve the Liberal Democrats. After the election of Jeremy Corbyn to the Labour leadership in 2015, Cable called on centre-left MPs from Labour and the Liberal Democrats to unite to prevent the Conservatives holding a “monopoly on power.” He made a similar suggestion in the lead up to the 2017 general election, predicting a new party in the event of Labour undergoing electoral collapse. After becoming leader of the Liberal Democrats, however, he rejected a proposal for a new anti-Brexit party by former government adviser James Chapman, insisting that anti-Brexit figures should join the Liberal Democrats instead.
Coalitions and electoral pacts
Cable has taken a sceptical approach to the question of potential coalitions with other parties since 2015. In April 2018, he said that the Liberal Democrats would never form a coalition government with Labour led by Jeremy Corbyn, and previously opposed the idea in 2015 as well where he said working with Labour was "inconceivable" because of Jeremy Corbyn's economic policies. Cable claims he would not work with the Conservatives either, comparing a coalition with the Conservatives to "mating with a praying mantis" where "You get eaten at the end of it." Rather than a coalition or propping up a government, he would prefer to work on "issue-by-issue" instead.
Cable ruled out the idea of electoral pacts in mid-April during the 2017 general election campaign. However, in early May, Cable was recorded suggesting that Liberal Democrat supporters vote for Labour candidates in certain seats where they could stop the Conservatives. Responding to the story on LBC radio, Cable restated that he would not work with Labour and said that the Liberal Democrats had more "common ground" with the Conservatives under David Cameron than with Labour under Jeremy Corbyn. Shortly after, Cable was due to appear and speak at a Compass event in support of a 'progressive alliance' (a proposed electoral pact between the Green Party, the Liberal Democrats, and Labour) but backed out, stating it was "too late" for a progressive alliance because he couldn't work with Labour "in its current form." He had previously spoken at a progressive alliance event by Compass in 2016.
Brexit
In 2017, a year after the Brexit referendum, Cable believed Brexit might still never happen. He maintained that when people saw the economic costs they would turn against it and a cross-party coalition of opponents to Brexit might develop. Cable said, "the whole question of continued membership will once again arise" if people's living standards worsened and unemployment rose.
Cable called for cross-border digital services and a single EU market for Netflix.
On 23 June 2018 Cable appeared at the People's Vote march in London to mark the second anniversary of the referendum to leave the European Union.In his speech he said, "keep fighting, keep hoping, we will win."
Cable maintained it "beggars belief that the army and the police are now being asked to prepare for riots in the chaotic aftermath of a botched Brexit. (...) For the 'true believers' - the fundamentalists - the costs of Brexit have always been irrelevant. Years of economic pain justified by the erotic spasm of leaving the European Union. Economic pain felt - of course - not by them by those least able to afford it. (...) [Theresa May] is dutifully delivering a policy she doesn't really believe in; failing in negotiations; losing public support; and all to appease a dwindling group of angry people in her party who will denounce her as a traitor, whatever she comes up with. (...) Our sympathy can only extend so far, while she puts the interests of the country second to the whims of the extremists in her party."
Tuition fees
In 2017, Cable defended the £9,000 per year university tuition fees cap, claiming it would be "dangerous and stupid" and a "cheap populist gesture" to abolish tuition fees, adding that the "40% of students" who go to university should not be subsidised by the "60% who don't". The comments were criticised on social media by figures on the left, while Conservative MP Jo Johnson voiced support for Cable's stance.
Housing
On housing, he has backed building on green belts as a solution to the housing crisis. He proposes allowing councils to levy up to a 500% council tax on empty homes.
The House of Lords
In 2018, Cable wrote that he had opposed and still opposed the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament, for being made up of unaccountable members. However, he expressed his appreciation for the Lords' "capacity to defeat and embarrass the government" over Brexit legislation, in which he argued the House of Lords were exercising more thorough oversight. Cable declined an offer to be seated in the House of Lords following the 2015 general election.
Personal life
Cable's first wife was Olympia Rebelo, a Kenyan from a Goan Roman Catholic background, whom he met "in the unromantic setting of a York mental hospital where we happened to be working as nurses during a summer holiday." They had three children together and she completed her PhD in history at Glasgow University in 1976. Olympia was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after the 1987 general election. After apparently successful treatment, the disease returned in the mid-1990s and before the 1997 general election. She died shortly after the 2001 general election.
In 2004, he married Rachel Wenban Smith. When appearing on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs programme in January 2009, Cable revealed that he wears the wedding rings from both of his marriages.
A keen ballroom dancer, Cable long expressed his desire to appear on the BBC's hit television show Strictly Come Dancing; he appeared on the Christmas 2010 edition of the show, partnered by Erin Boag and dancing the Foxtrot. He performed well and scored 36/40 from the judges, including a mark of 10/10 from head judge Len Goodman. Cable was the second politician to appear on the show, after former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe.
Cable is Patron of the homelessness charity SPEAR; Twickenham charities catering for mental illness amongst young people (Off the Record) and adults (Lunch at One); carers charities Crossroads Care and Homelink; music therapy for those with learning difficulties (OKMT); and cancer patient support, the Mulberry Centre.
Cable's eldest grandson is social activist and entrepreneur Ayrton Cable.
Honours
He was sworn in as a member of Her Majesty's Most Honourable Privy Council in 2010 upon his appointment as Secretary of State for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy and President of the Board of Trade in the coalition government. This gave him the Honorific Title "The Right Honourable" for life.
In David Cameron’s 2015 Dissolution Honours, Cable was appointed a Knight Bachelor for political and public service.
Made a freeman of the City of London on January 15, 2025.