Vince Cable loses the plot?

In his Mansion House speech yesterday:

www.moneymarketing.co.uk/politics/cable-to-attack-capitalism/1018867.article

FSA chairman Lord Turner used his Mansion House speech yesterday to ask that the debate ?move beyond the demonisation of over paid traders.?

He said: ?In finance and economics, ill-designed policy is a more powerful force for harm than individual greed or error.?

He said what was needed was to ?ensure that we address the fundamentals of what went wrong?.

The head of the FSA appears if anything to back him, here.

The FSB criticised aspects of Huhne's Green Deal here, but haven't seen any reaction to Cable.

Argh - I am sure I saw it but can't find it.

It might have been the FSA not the FSB, sorry.

Where's the criticism from the Federation of Small Businesses? I can't find any.

The thing about Clegg and Cable is that they're both reformers. As is Laws. That's why I like them.

He's not anti-business, not remotely, just anti-malpractice. And you can't be gentle about that kind of thing. You can't just waffle about corporate responsibility.

It's not about what he is saying - everyone other than anarchists agrees with regulating markets.

It is the way in which he is saying it which reveals his motivations.

He is framing it as an attack on business, an attack on capitalism - even though he has been forced to row back this morning. Why else would the Federation of Small Business, the CBI, and all the other major business organisations condemn his speech?

His anti-business stance is shocking. It will cost the UK tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of jobs - and totally unnecessarily.

David Cameron has said essentially the same thing - but more gently and reasonably, talking about corporate responsibility. Instead, Vince Cable seems to be determined to sound more like Arthur Scargill.

as Janet Daley says:

"In fact, as everybody and his wife has pointed out, Mr Cable?s wildly over-briefed speech is saying little about the dangers of monopolistic capitalism that is not already accepted by the most successful captalist countries."

lfn - you work with all the Lib Dems or none at all. I also think you're drawing distinctions between Clegg and Cable that just aren't there.

Which of his statements belongs in the Morning Star? There's murky corporate behaviour and Vince wants to shine a "harsh light" on it and root out malpractice. What's socialist about that?

Of course markets should be well regulated - but this is classic Vince - old Labour hard socialism.

He needs to be put out to pasture. He is dangerous - one of the biggest obstructions to creating growth and jobs in this country. His position as business secretary is going to become completely untenable if he continues making remarks that belong in the Morning Star.

The Tories can work with the likes of Nick Clegg, David Laws, Jeremy Browne. Working with Mike Hancock, Vince Cable and other SDP throwbacks is just not possible.

as can be seen from e.g. Winston Churchill's Socialism vs Liberalism speech before he went over:

"Socialism would kill enterprise; Liberalism would rescue enterprise from the trammels of privilege and preference"

"Socialism attacks capital, Liberalism attacks monopoly."

sorry, should have said Liberal philosophy - goes way way back. There's a big fear in the Lib Dems that the Tories are cronyistic, and Cable's just making it clear that he's alive to the issue.

I don't think he's lost the plot, far from it. Ensuring that markets aren't rigged is a central part of Liberal Democrat philosophy. Being against rigged markets, crony capitalism and monopolies isn't the same as being anti-market or anti-capitalism.

""Let's be very clear, my speech today - it's pro-business, it's pro-market," he told BBC Breakfast. "I want to protect consumers. I want to look after shareholders. I want a level playing field for small businesses - that's the message." (from the Telegraph story).

just seen him on t.v. - he's a cool dude. Says it's been taken out of context - though a lot of what I have heard I do agree with!Not lost plot at all. Just a bit nervous to reveal how much of the plot he has discovered more like.