Cable in plea to business after Hague attack
VINCE Cable was forced to defend his cabinet colleague William Hague yesterday after a series of Conservative attacks on British business provoked outrage.
Cable said “commercial diplomacy” is a major part of foreign policy as Hague came under fire from business leaders for telling them to stop “complaining” about the economy and “work harder”.
“He (Hague) works extremely hard with me and my colleagues promoting British business around the world. A large part of his job is commercial diplomacy and he is doing it extremely well,” said Cable, the Liberal Democrat business secretary.
The coalition has pinned its hopes of an economic recovery on cuts in corporation tax and red tape but yesterday Cable played down hopes of a major impact from George Osborne’s £20bn credit easing policy.
“Nobody ever argued the credit easing scheme would solve the problem of small business lending. We argued it would cheapen the cost, and that will happen.”
The coalition came under attack over the economic measures in the Queen’s speech and comments from Hague and defence secretary Philip Hammond, who accused business leaders of “whingeing”.
“What on earth does the foreign secretary think this country’s business owners do all day? His message is clear. He is saying that the fact the economy is not growing has nothing to do with the government’s failed economic policies,” said shadow business secretary Chuka Umunna.
“He is saying that it is not growing because the people in all our businesses out there are not working hard enough. How out of touch can the foreign secretary be?”
Rachel Reeves, shadow chief secretary to the Treasury, said: “Having choked off the recovery and taken our economy back into recession, the government that first blamed the snow, the royal wedding, and the Eurozone, now seems to be blaming everyone but itself for not working harder.”
She was speaking as David Cameron’s business advisory group – made up of 23 senior figures including Sir Martin Sorrell, Justin King and Eric Schmidt, the respective heads of WPP, Sainsbury and Google – met at Downing Street in a session that was expected to be stormy.
Number 10 refused to reveal what was said although Sir Martin said it had been “constructive”.