Vince Cable
Sir John Vincent Cable (born 9 May 1943)[2] is a British politician who was Leader of the Liberal Democrats from 2017 to 2019. He was Member of Parliament (MP) for Twickenham from 1997 to 2015 and from 2017 to 2019. He also served in the Cabinet as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills from 2010 to 2015.
Vince Cable
Liberal Democrats (1988–present)
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Olympia Rebelo(m. 1968; died 2001)
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Rachel Smith(m. 2004)
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Ayrton Cable (grandson)
Cable studied Economics at Cambridge and Glasgow, before working as an economic adviser to the Government of Kenya in the 1960s, and for the Commonwealth Secretariat in the 1970s and 1980s. During this period, he also lectured in economics at Glasgow. He later served as Chief Economist for Shell in the 1990s. Initially active in the Labour Party, Cable became a Labour councillor in Glasgow in the 1970s, during which time he also served as a special adviser to then-Trade Secretary John Smith. In 1982, however, he defected to the newly formed Social Democratic Party, which later amalgamated with the Liberal Party to form the Liberal Democrats.
After standing unsuccessfully for Parliament four times, Cable was elected for Twickenham in 1997. He was quickly appointed the Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesperson, and was later elected as Deputy Leader in 2006. Cable resigned from both of these positions in May 2010 after being appointed as Secretary of State for Business, Innovation and Skills in the coalition government.[3] He lost his seat in 2015, although later regained it in 2017. Cable subsequently stood in the leadership election to replace Tim Farron, and was elected unopposed.[4]
In May 2019, Cable led the Liberal Democrats to their best national electoral performance since the 2010 election, gaining fifteen seats in the European Parliament election. This followed a campaign in which the party ran on an anti-Brexit platform.[5][6] He subsequently announced his intention to retire from politics, and stood down as leader on 22 July 2019, upon the election of Jo Swinson; he stood down from Parliament at the 2019 general election.
On 2 July 2022, Cable was announced as Vice President of the European Movement.[7]
Early life and education[edit]
Cable was born in York, to a working class Conservative-supporting family. His father, Len, was a craftsman for Rowntree's, and his mother, Edith, packed chocolates for Terry's.[8] Cable attended Nunthorpe Grammar School where he became Head Boy. He then attended Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge, where he initially studied Natural Sciences and later switched to Economics.[9] He was the President of the Cambridge Union in 1965. He was also a committee member and later President-elect of the Cambridge University Liberal Club, but he resigned from the Liberal Party before taking up the office of President.[10] Whilst at Cambridge, he was a contemporary of the Cambridge Mafia.[11]
In 1966, at the end of his studies at the University of Cambridge, Cable was appointed as an Overseas Development Institute Fellow (ODI Nuffield Fellow) working in Kenya.[12]
He graduated in 1973 with a PhD in Economics from the University of Glasgow on economic integration and industrialisation.[13]
Economics career[edit]
Cable lectured for a time at the University of Glasgow and was a visiting research fellow at the Centre for the Study of Global Governance at the London School of Economics, for a three-year period until 2004.[14] In 2016, Cable was made Honorary Professor of Economics at the University of Nottingham.[15]
From 1966 to 1968, he was a Treasury Finance Officer to the Kenyan government.[16] In 1969, he visited Central America as a researcher on the recently formed Central American Common Market.[17]
From the early to mid-1970s, Cable served as First Secretary under Hugh Carless in the Latin American department of the Foreign Office. He was involved in a CBI trade mission to South America at this time, engaging in six months of commercial diplomacy.[18] In the late 1970s, he was special adviser to John Smith when the latter was Trade Secretary. He was an adviser to the UK Government and then to the Commonwealth Secretary-General Shridath "Sonny" Ramphal in the 1970s and 1980s.[19]
Cable served in an official capacity at the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting of 1983 in Delhi, witnessing "private sessions at first hand" involving Indira Gandhi, then-Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher, Lee Kuan Yew, and Bob Hawke among others. He was also present at the summits of 1985, 1987, and 1989.[18] In the same period, he contributed to the Brandt Commission, the Palme Commission, and the UN's Brundtland Commission.[18]
From the 1980s onwards, Cable authored and co-wrote numerous publications in favour of globalisation, free trade, and economic integration such as Protectionism and Industrial Decline, The Commerce of Culture, and Developing with Foreign Investment.
Cable worked for the oil company Royal Dutch Shell from 1990 to 1997, serving as its Chief Economist between 1995 and 1997. His role at Shell came under scrutiny as the company was accused of playing a role in a turbulent era of Nigerian politics during the dictatorship of General Sani Abacha.[20][21]
In 2017, Cable became a strategic advisor on the World Trade Board for the annual World Trade Symposium co-organised by Misys and FT Live.[22][23]
Personal life[edit]
Cable's first wife was Olympia Rebelo, a Kenyan from a Goan Roman Catholic background, whom he met "in the unromantic setting of a York mental hospital where we happened to be working as nurses during a summer holiday."[231][232] They had three children together and she completed her PhD in history at Glasgow University in 1976.[233] Olympia was diagnosed with breast cancer shortly after the 1987 general election. After apparently successful treatment, the disease returned in the mid-1990s and before the 1997 general election. She died shortly after the 2001 general election.
In 2004, he married Rachel Wenban Smith. When appearing on BBC Radio 4's Desert Island Discs programme in January 2009, Cable revealed that he wears the wedding rings from both of his marriages.[234]
A keen ballroom dancer, Cable long expressed his desire to appear on the BBC's hit television show Strictly Come Dancing;[235] he appeared on the Christmas 2010 edition of the show, partnered by Erin Boag and dancing the Foxtrot. He performed well and scored 36/40 from the judges, including a mark of 10/10 from head judge Len Goodman. Cable was the second politician to appear on the show, after former Conservative MP Ann Widdecombe.[236]
Cable is a patron of MyBigCareer,[237] a career guidance charity for young people, the Polycystic Kidney Disease Charity (PKD),[238] the Changez Charity.[239] and chair of HCT Group, a social enterprise transport operator.
Cable's eldest grandson is social activist and entrepreneur Ayrton Cable.[240]
Cable revealed that he had a minor stroke while leader of the Liberal Democrats in his memoir. The stroke occurred in May 2018.[241]