Get Cable....

Phewee! Anyone smell that?

That’s the stench of a reeking plot by the Conservative-right to oust their most troublesome coalition comrade. Anyone who doesn’t see through the fog of war over bankers-bonuses and eye this plot for what it is should have their political-senses tested.

I’m talking of course about the Cable ‘gaffage’ which dominates this morning’s headlines, in particular in the Telegraph, which broke the story following its undercover reporters’ work;
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/liberaldemocrats/8215462/Vince-Cable-I-could-bring-down-the-Government.html

The first thing that should spark interest in the motivations of this story is the source. The Telegraph is a fiercely Conservative paper, make no bones about that. So it comes as no surprise that they went for a Lib Dem with their undercover work (but they could have gone for a Labour shadow minister too if so inclined). But why Cable? Why not Clegg? Or Alexander? Or any of the other uncomfortable bedfellows to the left of the coalition?

There’s a few reasons of course. Not everyone sits in the coalition so uncomfortably with their Conservative colleagues. Clegg and others get along fine. Cable is different, he struggles with the arrangement more than most, as has been a matter of public debate on a few occasions already.

The Telegraph and some of its more prominent bloggers – Benedict Brogan foremost amongst them – don’t like to see their pals on the right of the party being pushed around by these lefty upstarts. They’re eager to lend a helping hand when possible. They’re also eager to see David Laws, someone very much on the right of the Lib Dems, back in the coalition, to bring a right-leaning skew to the fore. Of course, there’s no room right now for anyone else, so someone would have to go to make way for David. Vince is their preferred candidate.
Cable has been making things tricky for the right-wing of the coalition lately. Especially on the subject of bankers bonuses.

Of course, Cable, being more outspoken than most, having that air of sainthood about him, and leaning to the left, is more in tune with the public on the topic of bonuses than most ministers. He also has some power through his cabinet portfolio.
Tricky then, that the Chancellor has a lot of friends in the banking industry alongside him in the Conservatives, and a strong desire to restrain bank bashing and bonus slashing. Indeed, it’s something they’ve been ‘discussing’ very hard recently;
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/cable-and-osborne-clash-over-bank-bonus-reform-2141291.html

Right now is a crucial time for the bankers and their Xmas treats – it’s bonus season, and we’re all going to hear very soon quite how greedy they’ve managed to be in the face of another extremely difficult year for the economy, when lending is still at historic lows. This will even be the case for virtually nationalised banks, which will still be doling out some £high-number-followed-by-lots-of-zeros to their staff.

So, the negotiations between Osborne and Cable on what to do must be fairly intense.
What better way to reduce Cable’s stock somewhat than to have him stung. Reduce the value of the cards he has to play with, and so make the deal a little sweeter to the Tory right.

At this point we should go back to the first question of why the Telegraph targetted Cable? Even if the Tory right wanted to get him, and the Telegraph did too, they wouldn’t know how to effectively do that and the sting operation used would be a waste of time unless they had a pretty damned good idea that Cable had been mouthing off to the press/people in his constituency. Think about it; they could have sent 100 undercover reporters to 100 MPs and come away with nothing juicy. No, before they embarked on this exercise they knew Cable was being loose-lipped.

It’s not a huge leap of the imagination to think that one of Cable’s Conservative colleagues might have spotted he was being a bit more ‘open’ about the coalition than they liked to the press in the corridors of power, and suggested to Benedict Brogan or one of his other colleagues the time was right to get Cable via a surgery-sting.

Voila. Cable’s stock reduced, so bonus-bashing negotiations curtailed, put onto cusp of resigning, and into a position where if he does resign it’s through his own fault – because of this gaffe – rather than him declaring that he had to conscientiously go as a result of bad policymaking by the Conservatives – pushing him to do less to stop the bankers bonusizing themselves silly. Door swiftly opens to David Laws – a much more cosy bedfellow for Osborne and the Tory-right.

Simples. Oh, and Benedict hasn’t mucked about stirring up resignation talk either; http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/news/benedictbrogan/100069155/no-one-in-the-coalition-will-trust-vince-cable-now/

My guess, for what it's worth, is that this sting was arranged by Osborne, or a close MP associate of his.

EDIT - 12.22pm.

Just one last worrying thought.

Perhaps a bigger issue to the Conservative hierarchy at the moment is Cable's hand in the News Corp proposal to buy out Sky. It is quite possible that that is the subject of the most intense negotiations at the moment - and something I have in the past proposed Cable could resign over if pushed too hard.

Cable is not stupid, and anyone who understands this issue will know that it will permanently change UK politics if Murdoch is allowed to buy out the remaining shares of Sky. Change insofar as it will move everything to the right, as a huge proportion of the population would end up getting news through NewsCorp.

This sting may have been motivated with both reducing Cable's stock in terms of bonus negotiations, and reducing the value of his resignation over something like the NewsCorp proposal.

If Cable waves this through now... especially as the news today is that the EU has done so (leaving everything down to Cable), then it will be a dark day for British politics and all those to the left. The sting may play a part in this decision.