Vince Cable Quotes

Powerful Vince Cable for Daily Growth

Small- and medium-sized businesses need access to a diverse range of finance options, including non-bank lending. These new forms of finance are still small in scale today but they should, over time, bring additional choice and greater competition to the lending market.

- Vince Cable

Small, Access, Additional, Finance

And humility in politics means accepting that one party doesn't have all the answers; recognising that working in partnership is progress not treachery.

- Vince Cable

Politics, Partnership, Means, Treachery

We need a new British business bank with a clean balance sheet and an ability to expand lending rapidly to the manufacturers, exporters and high-growth companies that power our economy. Today I can announce we will have one.

- Vince Cable

I Can, British, Our, Manufacturers

I have managed to infuriate the bank bosses; acquire a fatwa from the revolutionary guards of the trades union movement; frighten the 'Daily Telegraph' with a progressive graduate payment; and upset very rich people who are trying to dodge British taxes. I must be doing something right.

- Vince Cable

Doing, Upset, Very, Trades

We've got to get back on track to working with them. Because if I and my colleagues are going to continue to attract inward investment from overseas - you know particularly from the big Asian countries - they see Britain as a gateway to Europe. They don't want any doubts cast upon that.

- Vince Cable

Big, Attract, Britain, Inward

My job is to support businesses, that means promoting British commerce in the big emerging markets that have been neglected in the past. It means keeping Britain open to inward investors, trade and skilled workers. It means cutting red tape which is suffocating growing companies which create jobs.

- Vince Cable

Big, Been, Suffocating, Inward

I've always been comfortable working with women and I've had two happy marriages. Draw what conclusions you like from that.

- Vince Cable

Always, Like, Been, Conclusions

According to the papers, I'm miserable, alienated, and on the brink of resignation. But that's simply not where I am.

- Vince Cable

Miserable, According, Brink

The food in the House of Commons is fairly good. The cafe in Portcullis House is really very high quality, and you also have a choice of eating in the more traditional restaurants, the Churchill Room or the Members' Dining Room. I don't often eat in them, though, as I'm usually on the run.

- Vince Cable

Run, House, Very, High Quality

Our workforce is very co-operative, very flexible, easy to work with and one of the big selling points. The idea that Britain is still back in the labour market of the '70s is utterly bizarre.

- Vince Cable

Big, Very, Still, Workforce

When my job was attempting to predict future economic developments for the Shell oil company, I was frequently reminded of an Arabic saying: 'Those who claim to foresee the future are lying, even if by chance they are later proved right.'

- Vince Cable

Developments, Frequently, Foresee

When Gordon Brown becomes prime minister, the balance sheet that reflects his economic stewardship could look very sickly indeed. He could become Labour's biggest liability, not its most marketable asset.

- Vince Cable

Very, Labour, His, Liability

I fear that the rising personal bankruptcies and repossessions are the first signs of bigger problems to come and personal debt - Gordon Brown's legacy to millions of Britain's families - will hang like a millstone around the neck of the British people for years to come.

- Vince Cable

Legacy, Rising, Hang, Gordon

Billions of taxpayers' money has been wasted in bad deals. The London Underground modernisation, personally negotiated by one of Gordon Brown's team, was a disaster, as the National Audit Office has confirmed.

- Vince Cable

London, Been, Billions, Gordon

Many of our problems are home-grown. Gordon Brown regularly advised the rest of the world to follow his British model of growth. But the model was flawed. It led to the highest level of household debt in relation to income in the world.

- Vince Cable

Income, Highest Level, Led, Gordon

I clearly believe a lot more than some of my coalition colleagues - Tories - in redistribution and using the tax system for that purpose. I also believe in the government having an active role in the economy, which is having an industrial strategy. I'm not a believer in laissez-faire.

- Vince Cable

Purpose, Some, Role, Redistribution

Banks operate like a man who either wears his trousers round his chest, stifling breathing, as now, or round his ankles, exposing his assets. We want their trousers tied round their middle: steady lending growth; particularly to productive British business, especially small scale enterprise.

- Vince Cable

Small, Enterprise, Stifling, Ankles

Investment banking has, in recent years, resembled a casino, and the massive scale of gambling losses has dragged down traditional business and retail lending activities as banks try to rebuild their balance sheets. This was one aspect of modern financial liberalisation that had dire consequences.

- Vince Cable

Financial, One Aspect, Sheets

I know it sounds trite but I wanted to make a difference. Political debates with my father had been fraught because he was uncompromising and explosive but if he taught me one thing it was to air my views.

- Vince Cable

Been, Explosive, Trite, Debates

We've been a bit too defensive about the European Union rules. We don't want to become protectionist and nationalist in the way we buy things but we think we could do a lot more to promote British business through procurement.

- Vince Cable

Through, Been, Buy, Nationalist

The economy has become seriously unbalanced. Its growth has not been driven by investment or by overcoming Britain's long-standing weaknesses in investment and productivity, particularly skills. Instead, there has been a binge of debt-financed consumer spending.

- Vince Cable

Been, Britain, Particularly, Consumer

No, and in fact I get a bit frustrated, because I'm actually quite good at one-liners, and I've had hundreds of them over the years, and they sink without trace, and I get very frustrated. Every party conference I really work on the speeches, and I always have two or three things I'm quite proud of, and no one ever remembers them.

- Vince Cable

Fact, Very, Frustrated, One-Liners

I think what is happening is I think first of all there is confidence in the U.K. economy. We're in a German rather than a Greek position in international financial markets, which is very positive and keeps our debt service costs down, and we're also beginning to see real evidence of rebalancing.

- Vince Cable

I Think, Very, German, International

On banks, I make no apology for attacking spivs and gamblers who did more harm to the British economy than Bob Crow could achieve in his wildest Trotskyite fantasies, while paying themselves outrageous bonuses underwritten by the taxpayer. There is much public anger about banks and it is well deserved.

- Vince Cable

Achieve, Harm, Gamblers, Apology

We have sectors of the economy, aerospace is a good example, where Britain's probably the second country in the world, the automobile sector, where we've done extraordinarily well, an enormous amount of investment over the last couple of years, life sciences is another.

- Vince Cable

Country, Couple, Britain, Extraordinarily

I am a bit of a lefty on some issues.

- Vince Cable

I Am, Some, Am, Lefty

My late wife Olympia was Goan and I've been to India many times. I love the food there. We used to do our shopping in Southall, where you can find cheap but wonderful fruit like mangoes, vegetables and spices. I didn't do much of the cooking, as Olympia did a lot - I was the under-chef and did some of the chopping.

- Vince Cable

Love, Some, Been, Shopping

The worship of youth has diminished - perhaps generally - in recent years.

- Vince Cable

Worship, Perhaps, Diminished, Recent

Well, as I said, you know the issue of Greek debt, they've grasped the principle of debt reduction. I think most people would argue that probably more needs to be done on that front, and they've just begun to take the first steps to accepting that there's going to have to be much closer economic integration in Europe.

- Vince Cable

Begun, I Think, Principle, Accepting

The degree of leverage now being reversed is staggering, and the underlying global imbalances - notably between the savers and the spenders - will require long and painful adjustment.

- Vince Cable

Degree, Will, Leverage, Staggering

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