If Cable had an ounce of integrity he would have resigned by now.

In fact he has proved to be a weak and unprincipled liar and a braggart.

In a word he's a Lib/Dem.

Mehdi Hasan

"'Supply and confidence'? That's for wimps," seemed to be the refrain of the Orange Bookers."

And if they had provided supply and confidence you would have been just as much a viscious, unreasonable polemicist who would refuse to credit people for acting in the national interest rather than narrow tribal partisanship.

I used to think you were so immature and intellectually and ethically limited you believed your own BS Mehdi. Then I saw you getting increasing TV coverage and I realised that this ranting nonsense is your livelihood and you are doing very well financially out of your tribal stupidity, visciousness and faux santimony.

Truly a man with no moral compass.

FA

Depends on how narrow your definition of the national interest is doesn't it?

Much is said and made of the national interest by the coalition and particularly the LDs but the evidence for policies that really are in the national interest are decidedly lacking whereas partisanship, in the form of Tory policy and ideology, is clear for all to see.

All this sounds too good to be true.

Lou

I hate to break it to you but at a time of economic strife a government without a majority isn't what the country needs. People's livelihoods and economic stability were at stake.

As for the policies, the main one (which I'm sure is what is getting your goat) are the inevitable cuts. Not just the Governor of the Bank of England but the Permanent Secretary to the Treasury (as a new book bby Seldon on Brown reveals) believed cuts were necessary. And the proof of necessity is in Labour's policy "slightly less cuts, slightly slower".

What's going on now isn't ideological - if when the fiscal position is better the government chooses to put through tax cuts rather than restore spending levels THAT would be ideological. And you appear not to comprehend what the word ideology means - Labour's decision to increase spending to the levels it did in the good times was also ideological. We'll see what happens in three years or so - now? What is going on now is what would have happened under any government of any party.

The double standards on the use of a sting makes for hypocritical reading. No one bemoans the Murdoch News Corps use of a 'sting' but decries the ethics and legality of the same where Cable is concerned.

I applaud Cable's honesty on the matter but it doesn't detract from the fact that his impartiality as a Business Sectretary has been compromised and undermined.

The decision to keep Cable as Business Secretary and hand over a huge chunk of his responsibilities to Culture and Media shows how unstable the coalition is but also it is about keeping a tight rein on Cable. Out of office, he could be too much of a loose cannon with his tendency to be so refreshingly honest (at last).

Either way, it isn't good for the coalition and the fracture between the left and the right of the LDs is compounded as well as between the Tory backbenchers and Cabinet over this and other issues.

It is fun watching people make fools of themselves.

Bizarrely stupid. Amazing that Clegg and Cable have trashed their reputations to the extent they have. Impossible to imagine how either might recover. What happens to the coalition now the Lib Dems are a busted flush? Another five years of this?

Untrustworthy, flaky, unserious. They could have avoided it all if they'd just switched their brains on.

First Mr Bean now Frank Spencer "ooh David I did a whoopsie on the carpet"
Goodnight children everywhere

FA

Labour weren't the only ones arguing for slower and slightly less cuts - David Blanchflower and Christopher Pissarides for example.

King is supposed to be apolitical and as such should not be entering the political arena by endorsing anyone's fiscal policy nor commenting publicly on it either.

Sir Nicholas Macpherson, the permanent secretary you mention, should also be remaining apolitical and not stating that the deficit should be erased over one parliamentary lifetime along with Mervyn King, incidentally lest we forget, both these people were complicit in the financial bust and are also referred to by one cabinet member as 'two pillars of 1930s fiscal fundamentalism'.

As Macpherson said himself, the 'civil service should advise and not decide'

I rather think that the attack on the public sector is ideological rather than only fiscal necessity. If all these cuts and measures are fiscal necessity only, will we see a reversal of them when back on an even keel - I don't think so.

I thought that Vince Cable would be the first out of the government I said that long before David Laws bit the dust, but never for a moment did I think that it would be by his own hand I thought as an honorable man he would leave because he could no stomach the Tories, the cuts and all the Tories stood for and he realised that the Lib Dems fronted all of the unpopular policies that the Tories and foisting on the public. He may not be any different from the politicians who have gone before him with a slip of the tongue or zip but it just might shows his actually lack of experience by allowing himself a little bit of bragging and self indulgence, by actually saying what he was thinking in private, I hope that he has had enough of the Tories and their cuts and planned cuts and increases in tuition fees and returns to the back benches saves his constituency seat and votes with his heart instead of with the Tories

The coalition of cuts just gets worse. I'm slightly puzzled as to how this gaggle of fools pledges to reduce our deficit to the point of hysterical obsession; yet manages to increase our month by month borrowing by billions. We cannot afford to keep these incompetents in any longer.

The old adage is true: he who sups with the devil needs a long spoon. Vince's spoon is not long enough.

Hi,

Have you got any information regarding the use of remote, non-passive, non-invasive inner ear cochlea sound transmission via either the ultrasonic hearing effect (or hypersonic effect), or the microwave auditory effect (or microwave hearing effect or Frey effect), incorporating hybrid carrier wave sound (or overlay sound) propogation using ambient and subliminal sound techniques? Possible uses could be non-lethal weaponry, pychological warfare or private message transmission.

Query is regarding the increased use of remote, non-invasive, non-passive, non-lethal military weapons, being used by security agencies, including in the UK, in the 'surveillance war against terror', and against political dissidence!

This also includes the use of 'under the radar' remote non-invasive, non-passive weaponized intruments that shoot intense radiations and emmissions (ionizing or non-ionizing)
, to target individuals from nearby properties and vehicles, to cause a detrimental effect to their neurologic and physiologic well-being; surviellance war in an urban environment.

There maybe growing evidence that the security services have deversified their tactics, and are using 'local intruments of government' (particularly the 'NHS'!) as a front and illegal loop-hole to allow them to ochestrate acts equatable to torture and interrogation within the UK.

Regards

Mr Humanus Wright

Hi Nick,

Yep very frustrating not just the break in continuity but also not being able to debate after about four in the afternoon, presumably no staff around to do whatever they are having to do.

Surely within the margins of error Kershan.

Cable has gone back on his word so many times he has no credibility anyway. I don't know how he can live with himself for betraying the Chagossians or the students.

His own stupid vanity in bragging to a giggly journo deserves to be his undoing, but the real story is that he handed his opponents in the coalition the perfect opportunity to throw Murdoch a lifeline. I am quite sure that is the worst day's work this idiot will ever do his his life.

Sure, Vince was stupid to shoot his mouth off, but it seems a little too convenient an error. I wouldnt be surprised to find that these 'constituents' were lackies of Murdochs. Frankly nothing would surprise me about the whole affair.