It is one of those peculiar permutations of coalition politics that George Osborne can consider himself very grateful to Lord Oakeshott, the Liberal Democrat peer and former Treasury spokesman, who has effectively called for the Chancellor to be sacked. Lord Oakeshott took to the airwaves (where he spends a considerable amount of his time) after the announcement of dire GDP data yesterday, to say that Osborne was performing as if on “work experience” and ought to be replaced by a more substantial figure. By that he meant Vince Cable, the business secretary, on whose behalf Oakeshott is often deemed to be speaking. Cable later on stirred the speculation further by suggesting immodestly that he “probably” would make a decent Chancellor, but this morning he publicly reined in his ambitions. He is a team player, he insisted, and Osborne leads the Treasury team.
There is, it has to be said, absolutely no chance of Cable being made Chancellor in this government. Really none at all. Zilch. The job would never go to a Lib Dem – its occupation by a Tory is part of the agreed fundamental architecture of the coalition. Cable will be lucky to stay in the cabinet at all in the next reshuffle. He has never been an ally of Nick Clegg in whose office he is seen as a grandstanding maverick and potential leadership threat. Even in opposition there was resentment of the way that Cable was held up as a mighty authority on economic matters – “St Vince” – poaching precious publicity from the leader. That feeling has since been exacerbated by a very personal irritation that Clegg has become the hated symbol of the u-turn on tuition fees, taking the full force of a vicious public and political backlash, when Cable ran the department that actually implemented the policy and yet escaped with hardly a scratch.
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