Cable’s contempt for NI business figures
Liberal Democrat Treasury spokesman Vince Cable has waded into the national insurance row by calling the interventions of business leaders “utterly nauseating”.
Dr Cable went on the offensive after the first week of the general election campaign was dominated by Tory proposals to scrap the government’s planned one per cent hike in national insurance contributions.
The Conservatives have gathered support from more than 100 business leaders. Dr Cable called their intervention “barefaced cheek”.
“If they are going to wade into this debate, they do have an obligation to explain how this national insurance cut is going to be paid for and that is where they are failing and they are being used,” he said in an interview with the Guardian newspaper.
Dr Cable added: “I just find it utterly nauseating all these chairmen and chief executives of FTSE 100 companies being paid 100 times the pay of their average employees lecturing us on how we should run the country. I find it barefaced cheek.”
The Liberal Democrats are the most anti-City of the three main parties, with leader Nick Clegg refusing to give ground in a recent interview with politics.co.uk.
“What’s happened to the bankers? They’re still raking in the bonuses,” he said. “That’s why we’re the only party in British politics to say the banks should be split up.”
