John Vincent Cable is a politician, who was a leader of the Liberal Democrats until the election of Nick Clegg. He is Member of Parliament for Twickenham and has been the Liberal Democrats' main economic spokesperson since 2003, having previously served as Chief Economist for the oil company Shell from 1995 to 1997. He was elected as deputy leader of the Liberal Democrats in the House of Commons in March, 2006. He was acting leader of the Liberal Democrats on 15 October 2007 following Sir Menzies Campbell's resignation, but announced soon after that he would not be a candidate in the leadership election.
At university, Cable was a member of the Liberal Party but joined the Labour Party after graduation. In 1981, he joined the newly-created Social Democratic Party (SDP). He was parliamentary candidate for his home city of York in both the 1983 and 1987 general elections.He won the seat of Twickenham at the 1997 General Election, and increased his majority in the elections of 2001 and 2005.
In 2004, Cable contributed to the Orange Book and is identified with the economic liberal wing of the party. He believes that the Liberal Democrats should stand for "fairer taxes, not higher taxes".
In late 2005/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, due to pressure from his frontbench team and an ITN News report documenting his alcoholism, Charles Kennedy announced a leadership election in which he pledged (promised) to stand for re-election. However he resigned on 7 January. Cable passed over the opportunity to run for the party leadership himself, instead supporting Sir Menzies Campbell's bid.
Cable is credited by some with prescience of the Global financial crisis of 2008–2009. 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: 'there is no indication that the scale of debt problems have… risen markedly in the last five years.' He also said that the fraction of household income used up in debt service is lower than it was then." In his book The Storm, Cable writes "The trigger (in this case it means cause) for the current global financial crisis was the US mortgage market and, indeed, the scale of improvident and unscrupulous lending on that side of the Atlantic dwarfs into insignificance the escapades of our own banks."
Vincent Cable thinks that the government ( Chancellor) has to encourage banks to start lending money for good companies to cover the amount of bad debts. He also thinks that the Government needs to have a clearly articulated strategy about how to get the budget back into balance once the crisis is over. It will have to have severe discipline when it comes to public-sector spending and that can't just be done by salami-slicing. It is going to have to involve real decisions. Cable considers that the government has to reduce taxes for low income families (redistribution of income). To cover this gap in budget, that might be after reducing some taxes , the government could provide regressive tax (more income - more percantage of tax). Politician also thinks that government has to help banks in covering their debts. Vincent Cable considers that to encourage small businesses the government has to boost banks in terms of lending money ( by providing security, for instance).
