Free Radical

by Cable, Vincent

  Just over a year after the 2001 elections Charles Kennedy asked me to take over the economic brief, as our shadow Chancellor. This was a big move for me, to the heart of the party’s policy-making, and promised a major role in the next general election campaign. It required some courage on Charles’s part, since it involved moving Matthew Taylor, his close ally and campaign manager in the party leadership contest. I came to appreciate that, behind Charles’s diffident manner and consensual style of leadership, there was a touch of steel. He also had a clear sense of political direction and saw an opening for us as a party that took us beyond the guerrilla warfare campaigning at which we had excelled, and beyond Paddy Ashdown’s flirtation with New Labour.

  There was a political space to be occupied appealing to people on both the traditional left and right: the former disillusioned with New Labour, and the latter, socially liberal Conservatives, unable to stomach Iain Duncan Smith’s brand of Conservatism. For our party to exploit this new, eclectic mix required us to overcome widespread scepticism as to whether we were a serious party beyond the limits of local government and the occasional protest. A key step to establishing that belief was economic credibility. This I was required to develop by using my business background and establishing a more disciplined approach to money. We had been, somewhat unfairly, characterized by our opponents as spending more money on everything and being in favour of higher taxes as a matter of principle. With the help of David Laws, now an MP and part of my Treasury team, we were able to craft a more serious approach to spending priorities and budget discipline, and an emphasis on fairer, rather than higher, taxes.

  While the continued but somewhat fading ascendancy of New Labour, and the hopelessness of the Tories, gave us grounds for optimism nationally, the position on the ground in my borough was quite different. The Lib Dems had controlled the council, led by David Williams, for almost eighteen years. The initial enthusiasm and idealism had become tempered by severe budget constraints and painful spending choices, and public resistance to one of the highest council taxes in Britain. Although the council had been led with considerable political skill, some unpopular decisions were taking their toll and in May 2002 the Lib Dems were swept out of power in a Conservative landslide. This change of fortune was a threat to the two local Lib Dem MPs, for we were now left very exposed; but it also provided an opportunity for me. Instead of being a tolerated and respected, but annoyingly independent, presence among party activists, I found myself in a leadership role, rallying the dispirited and defeated troops. I was helped considerably by the local Conservatives who, with a few honourable exceptions, embodied Teresa May’s devastatingly self-critical description of them as the ‘nasty party’: mean-spirited and intolerant of diversity. More estimable qualities of administrative competence and a concern for educational standards somehow got lost in their atavistic tribalism, a problem the Conservative leadership continues to struggle with to this day. I became a successful community campaigner and helped to set my party back on the path to recapturing power in a reverse landslide four years later.

  The early months of the 2001 parliament became dominated by an issue that future generations will puzzle over with some bewilderment: fox-hunting. But the tally-ho of the British hunters was soon drowned out by the bugles of the American cavalry arriving. In the months leading up to the Iraq War there was a growing amount of agonized questioning. In my own party the arguments ebbed and flowed in the shadow Cabinet and in the parliamentary party. We were, after all, the party of liberal internationalism whose leaders, from Palmerston to Paddy Ashdown, had supported intervention against tyrants. We had enthusiastically endorsed military intervention in Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Liberia. Paddy, in particular, as one of the few modern politicians to have seen combat, had built his, and our, reputation on military activism. Most of our MPs (who, like me, had Conservative opponents) were nervous about being portrayed as ‘failing to support our troops’. The ‘evidence’ about weapons of mass destruction, as presented in the government dossiers, was ambiguous; though by the time of the UK decision to join the war the more extreme claims in relation to nuclear weapons or long-range missiles were no longer being taken very seriously. The legal issues, too, were not clear-cut, though Tony Blair’s pursuit of a second Security Council resolution provided a test we could all evaluate. The most persuasive argument for most of us was that intervention would be counterproductive: it would fuel Middle Eastern terrorism; would distract from the need to resolve the Arab–Israeli conflict; and would dissipate the political and military resolve to turn around Afghanistan.

  Charles Kennedy chaired innumerable discussions and patiently winnowed out the strong from the weak arguments. Once it became clear that we would oppose the war, he sought to ensure that everyone was comfortable with the position and that we would be united. It was still far from clear at that stage whether he had made the right call, though the anti-war march and Charles’s decision to address it ensured that we were speaking for a very large, angry constituency. The parliamentary debate on the decision to go to war was the biggest occasion of my years there. While there were some fine, independent-minded speeches from some Labour supporters of the war like Ann Clwyd, and opponents like John Denham, who had just resigned as a minister in protest – and from a handful of Conservative rebels like Ken Clarke and Ian Taylor – my abiding recollection was of the personal venom directed at our benches, mainly from the Conservative side. Charles struggled at times to keep going in the din, but the raucous taunts of ‘Charlie Chamberlain’ and ‘traitor’ gained him wider sympathy than Tony Blair’s carefully reasoned arguments would otherwise have allowed.

  Initially, with newspapers reporting that ‘weapons of mass destruction’ had been found and US ‘shock and awe’ producing a quick collapse of the Iraqi forces, it appeared that the military intervention had succeeded. We were endlessly taunted in Parliament by government über-loyalists like Jack Straw and Geoff Hoon who revelled in their apparent triumph. Jenny Tonge, my neighbouring MP, and I were confronted by ecstatic local Conservatives who demanded a military march past at the town hall to celebrate a victory comparable to Waterloo or El Alamein, at which the traitorous Lib Dem MPs could be exposed for their lack of patriotism. In the months and years that followed, however, our party, and Charles Kennedy personally, would be gradually vindicated.

  I was, necessarily, a bit player in the party’s campaigning on the war. I made a minor contribution, through my visiting fellowships at Nuffield and the LSE, in thinking through some of the possible economic consequences of the war, including the counter-intuitive idea that a war designed in part, at least, to open up Iraqi oil production might have the opposite effect of constricting supply and precipitating an oil shock. It happened, but only several years later.

  My main task was to build up my party’s credibility on the wider economic agenda, in particular by developing a critique of Gordon Brown’s chancellorship that fitted our narrative but also resonated with the public. It had always seemed to me that the shrill sense of outrage that characterizes the speeches of most opposition spokespersons, on most subjects, is politically counterproductive and simply rather silly. This was especially so on economic policy, where the government had, at that time, a reasonably good story to tell. Michael Howard, who held the economic brief for the Conservatives, was clever and played the pantomime role well, but came across as insincere. His successor, Oliver Letwin, by contrast, looked visibly uncomfortable in this world of parody and caricature and eager to get back to his job in the City or his books.

  I decided not to try to compete, but simply to acknowledge Gordon Brown’s successes objectively, before dealing with his failures, also objectively. Setting the right tone wasn’t easy: too much praise would seem obsequious; too much criticism would seem carping and formulaic. I think I got the balance broadly right and have persisted with it: on the one hand, acknowledging the prolonged period of steady growth and rising employment, and the Chancellor’s commitm
ent to an open economy; on the other, criticizing the growing imbalance created by high personal debt and an inflated housing market; the overcomplicated, centralized system of micromanagement; and the catalogue of specific errors, ranging from occupational pensions and tax credits, through to the London Underground PPP and repeated U-turns on tax policy. Brown and I have maintained an amicable relationship, though I have been careful not to become too close and locked into his bear hug. I have seen enough of him to recognize not just his formidable intelligence, and even his considerable personal charm, but also a tendency to bully those misguided enough to hold a different point of view.

  One of the key decisions made at this time – I think gradually rather than abruptly – was not to join the euro. I had often spoken in support of the project and of British membership on economic grounds, but once the decision had effectively been made by Gordon Brown not to join, there was little to be gained by continuing the argument. Once the ship had left the harbour it was pointless to swim after it, though for some years afterwards I sat on a parliamentary committee set up by the Chancellor, and continued, with his encouragement, preparing for the practicalities of e-day. I realized at the same time that I was myself also becoming somewhat more questioning about the European project as a whole.

  Ever since the start of the debate over British entry to the Common Market forty years earlier, I had been a strong pro-European. I saw the European project as a form of practical internationalism, and its achievements in that respect have indeed been substantial: cementing peace between European enemies; opening up the borders of Europe to trade and, increasingly, movements of people; nurturing the emergence of first southern, then eastern, Europe to democracy and market economics. But I became increasingly frustrated and alarmed by the slowness of reform of the CAP; the frequently mercantilist approach to trade policy; the unnecessary intrusiveness of EU rules; the inefficiency and lack of control over EU budgets; and the unfailing ability of EU institutions to hoover up more powers and responsibilities, and to resist decentralization of matters, such as social policy and agriculture, that are best dealt with nationally. From being something akin to a Eurofanatic, I gradually acquired a degree of scepticism which reflected the public mood and that of many of my colleagues.

  I had a major political break in the 2004 budget when Charles Kennedy, who as party leader was due to reply, didn’t turn up. There was approximately an hour’s notice and, to general surprise, I responded confidently and with spontaneity, earning some good reviews. In truth, it is a tradition of some absurdity that opposition leaders should respond to the Chancellor, and this was my subject. There was a lot of speculation among colleagues and the press as to the cause of Charles’s absence, and the version that included alcohol featured on the charge sheet during the leadership crisis two years later. I was more than happy to accept the official explanation, a stomach bug, and felt indebted to him for the opportunity.

  This minor episode did, however, crystallize growing worries that we were not capitalizing on the opportunities presented by an increasingly unpopular war and Labour leadership, and a Conservative opposition that was drifting badly. We were (and still are) in a transition from being a minor party which occasionally won spectacular by-elections and did well in local government, to a major party on a par with the other two. The seating and speaking arrangements in Parliament that give pride of place to the ‘official’ opposition in a bipolar house were reflected in much of the media coverage which, to our mounting exasperation, treated almost every issue (except the war) as an opportunity to pit Conservative spokesmen against government ministers. Our press officers battered endlessly at studio doors to get us a better hearing but succeeded only spasmodically. Any publicity was better than none. When the Sun took us sufficiently seriously to feature Charles Kennedy on their front page as a poisonous snake, and the Daily Mail took a prominent page to ridicule our policies, we were delighted. But our infamy was short-lived. When the Conservatives realized the full extent of the damage the Duncan Smith leadership was causing and summarily ditched him in favour of Michael Howard, there was a palpable sense in Parliament and in the press lobby that ‘normal’ two-party politics had resumed. Occasionally we broke the duopoly, as with the spectacular victory by Sarah Teather in the Brent East by-election, but that was soon discounted by commentators as a mere by-election exception, and the Labour Party got its act together to prevent a repetition in Hartlepool.

  The mood in the run-up to the 2005 election was very mixed. We had much to be pleased about: there were more MPs and councillors than at any time in the party’s living memory; our leader was popular and his credibility greatly enhanced by opposition to the war in Iraq; there was a serious professionalism in our campaigning and press operations, and in much of our policy-making; and we had a new generation of high-quality candidates who saw entry to Parliament through the Lib Dems as a serious career option. Yet there was also frustration as we failed to break through.

  This session of parliament began with a death and ended with another: that of my mother. But the ties to my parents, latterly my mother, were much weaker than those to my wife, and my mother’s death, though mourned, left few traces. For the last quarter of her life she had led a private, solitary life, avoiding company and shunning friendship and seemingly more content in her emotional self-reliance than in her earlier dependence on an overbearing husband, inattentive sons and interfering neighbours. The person she loved more than any other, her sister Irene in Australia, she had seen only once in the fifty years since Irene had emigrated. Early mental illness and numerous operations for bowel cancer in her middle age had taken their toll on her too. I stayed with her and maintained regular contact during the five years when I was fighting York, but with the onset of Olympia’s illness my visits became less frequent; even then, she apologized so profusely for the inconvenience caused that a trip from London was made to seem like a journey to the North Pole. She moved into sheltered accommodation but shunned the communal area, imagining that the Daily Telegraph readers who occupied it would persecute her because of her factory-girl background and her infamous elder son’s politics. But we did give her some real pleasures. The first was when she was persuaded to come to London to attend first Paul’s and then Aida’s wedding. After she had finished apologizing to station porters and taxi drivers for her Yorkshire accent, she enjoyed herself and revelled in the role of family matriarch. She coped happily with sharing a table at Aida’s wedding with a real lord and lady. Had we warned her in advance, she would have stayed away.

  A few years later, I took Rachel to meet her. At last, in her eighties, here was a daughter-in-law she heartily approved of: naturally kind, attentive and well-mannered, and with the added bonus of a public school voice. But, alas, about this time her memory started to go and she became increasingly confused. Daily routines became progressively more difficult and irritated phone calls to me from the warden more frequent. The management company running the sheltered housing made it painfully clear that helping dotty old ladies who had locked themselves out and were partially clothed was not part of a warden’s job description, nor did it suit their corporate image. My brother and I were urged to move her (though she owned her own flat), and after a difficult spell in York District Hospital and numerous assessments, we moved her to an Abbeyfield home nearby in south-west London, specializing in senile dementia. Through the haze of confusion, she could dimly pick out the contours of an unfamiliar new world which had involved the loss of her home and home town, a long journey, and admission to an institution with locked doors and strange people. In one of her lucid moments, she told me of her horror that she appeared to have returned to a ‘loony bin’. She had, I think, enough of a grasp of reality to hate the imprisonment, the dislocation of her routine, and the indignity of collective care. After a few weeks, she caught a new infection which she made little attempt to fight and died soon afterwards.

  Her funeral was a sad little affair, with my brother Keith,
his first wife, myself, my children and Rachel. She had outlived her sister and all her friends. Having spent all her long life in the city of York, she had been taken two hundred miles away to die. But the harsh truth was that the waves had closed over her life very quickly.

  When the general election came, the party nationally started with just over 20 per cent of the vote and expected to pick up 3–4 per cent more during the campaign as we received more exposure. It was hoped that Charles’s likeable and engaging personality (and a baby due imminently) would trump the clever but less likeable or engaging Michael Howard and a prime minister increasingly discredited by the war.

  The campaign launch in particular was a very public disaster. Charles was not on form, which I assumed was due to new parental duties but his critics alleged was the result of a very bad hangover. He was widely blamed for stumbling over tax policy. But even if he had been on top form and memorized his lines, he would have struggled. The problem had been anticipated the previous evening and I had suggested sitting with him on the platform and intervening in the event that tricky questions came in, as they were likely to with Andrew Neil, Adam Boulton, Andrew Marr and Nick Robinson in the audience. Precedence, however, demanded that the chairman of the campaign committee, Lord Razzall, the chairman of the manifesto team, Matthew Taylor, the deputy leader, Sir Menzies Campbell, and a woman should occupy the available seats. My attempts to stage-whisper from the back of the room merely added to the journalists’ hilarity.