Vincent Cable - Former Acting Leader, Liberal Democrats
Vincent Cable entered Parliament at his fifth attempt in 1997, gaining this seat from the Conservatives. He was Acting Leader of the Liberal Democrats in 2007.
Vincent Cable read Natural Science and Economics at Fitzwilliam College, Cambridge University, where he was President of the Union, followed by a PhD at Glasgow University.
Vincent worked as Treasury Finance Officer for the Kenya Government between 1966 and 1968. After lecturing at Glasgow University in economics he worked as a first Secretary in the Diplomatic Service in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office (1974-1976). He was then Deputy Director of the Overseas Development Institute, this included a period working for the then Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, John Smith MP, as a Special Advisor. From 1983 to 1990 Vincent worked as Special Advisor on Economic Affairs for the Commonwealth Secretary General, Sir Sonny Ramphal.
From 1990 Vincent worked for Shell International and from 1995 was Shell's Chief Economist. He has also been head of the economic programme at Chatham House and since becoming an MP, has been appointed a fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford.
Vincent Cable served as a Labour Councillor in Glasgow between 1971 and 1974, and contested the Glasgow Hillhead Division in the 1970 General Election. Vincent joined the Social Democrat Party after its formation and went on to contest York for the SDP/Liberal Alliance in both the 1983 and 1987 General Election.
In 1992 Vincent contested Twickenham for the Liberal Democrats squeezing the Conservative majority to just 6,121 and making Twickenham the most marginal Conservative/Liberal Democrats seat in the Capital. In 1997 Vincent Cable was first elected to Parliament to represent Twickenham with a majority of 4,281.
His work on local issues includes: MRSA and hospital cleanliness; hospice funding and the Shooting Star children's Hospital; specialised nurses for chronic illnesses; and cancer screening. He has has attempted to get the Greenwich Judgment repealed and has sought to rectify difficulties in the Private Finance Initiative in schools (with the collapse of Jarvis). He has worked with residents' groups to secure tighter regulation of odour and river pollution by Thames Water at Mogden sewerage works. On transport, he has: asked many questions in Parliament regarding night noise and numbers of flights at Heathrow; spoken at the Terminal 5 enquiry; and secured a debate to argue for greater weight for environmental factors in airport policy. He chaired the All Party Police Group for 5 years and raised many police issues in Parliament such as gun crime, and more recently the "knives destroy lives" campaign with the Victims of Crime Trust based in Twickenham; he also launched a probe into Feltham Young Offenders Institution, contributing to less over-crowding and improvements in education and medical treatment. He fought the closure of post offices, locally and nationally.
Since becoming an MP he has been a member of the Treasury Select Committee and he is the Liberal Democrats' Shadow Chancellor. He has spoken on many issues such as Bank profits, Personal debt, and Equitable Life and The Telegraph recently described him as "The Government's most trenchant economic critic".
In March 2006 Vincent was elected by fellow MPs as Deputy Leader . He is also Chair of the All Party Parliamentary Groups on Adoption, Pulmonary Hypertension, Police, and Victims of Crime and treasurer of the Internet Group.
Publications: Before becoming an MP he was a regular broadcaster and columnist in The Independent (on economic and political issues), on BBC World Service radio and television and in The Economist. His books include: Multiple Identities: Living with the new politics of identity [Demos, 2005]; Chapter 5: Liberal economics and social justice in The Orange Book - Reclaiming Liberalism edited by David Laws and Paul Marshall (Profile Books, 2004); Regulating Modern Capitalism (Centre for Reform Papers, 2002); Commerce (Liberal Democrat Consultation Papers, 2002); and Global Governance (Chatham House/Pinter, 2000). Globalisation and Global Governance is available from our Amazon deal. A selection of his papers and reports can be downloaded from his website.
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