Product Description

Vince Cable, Deputy Leader of the LibDems and Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer, has been proved right again and again as the current economic crisis unfolds. Measured, analytical and wise, he is the hero of the crunch in Parliament - as well as its most popular member. Yet his life story is far from that of a career politician. Born into a working-class family in York, he excelled at school and took his first degree at Cambridge, where he became interested in both politics and development economics - which led to his first job, working in the Treasury of Kenya, and to his first marriage, in the teeth of family opposition on both sides, to Olympia Rebelo. They lived in Glasgow, where two of their three children were born, and then moved to London while Vince worked in the Foreign Office before visiting and researching in India, then working for the Commonwealth Secretariat and then for Shell, where he worked as Chief Economist. It was not until 1997 that he was elected to represent Twickenham in Parliament, by which time Olympia was in the late stages of cancer, which she fought courageously until 2001. The vagaries of life as a constituency MP, the gathering clouds of economic disaster and the crash of 2008 bring events up to date. Best known today for his prescience and authority on both domestic and international economic matters, Vince recalls a life of wide variety and great interest - and ballroom dancing - with self-deprecating humour and great insight, making this a terrific and very timely read.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1922 in Books
• Published on: 2009-11-01
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 320 pages

Review
"The extraordinary and moving life story of Britain's most popular and respected politician - 'the man who gives politicians a good name' (Rory Bremner) * 'Everything a politician should be and everything most politicians are not.' Jeff Prestridge, Mail on Sunday 'A heavyweight in anybody's cabinet' Matthew Parris, The Times 'The undisputed heavyweight champion of the credit crunch in parliament' Robert Peston"

About the Author
Vince Cable is Member of Parliament for Twickenham and has been the Liberal Democrats' chief economic spokesperson since 2003, having previously served as Chief Economist for Shell from 1995 to 1997. He was elected as Deputy Leader of the Liberal Democrats, to Sir Menzies Campbell, in March 2006 and was acting leader of the Liberal Democrats prior to the election of Nick Clegg.

Customer Reviews

Why this whole book is a self-referential load of tosh
The problem with this book (and I think with Vince Cable in general) is that as soon as the credit crunch started he was credited with forseeing everything that was going to happen. Since then he has been able (with the aid of the "Mr Bean" comment to Gordon Brown) to define himself as the sensible voice of the credit crunch while simply parroting popular thoughts at the time. What nobody seems to notice is that Mr Cable seems to make all of his "insightful" comments about something only after they've happened. And he didn't predict the credit crunch, he predicted a contraction in the housing market. As it happened, even his preditcion wasn't correct because the housing market didn't contract, the housing bubble burst. This book is basically a load of rubbish with Mr Cable explaining why he thinks he's an economic genius but at the same time anyone who properly analyses the whole economic crunch knows that he's really not. Something to read if you're a reactionary.