Vince Cable’s disagreement with David Cameron over immigration seems entirely reasonable to me and much less problematic than his attitude to Rupert Murdoch’s attempt to purchase SKY. Sure, if he were a Tory he’d have been sacked. But he’s not a Tory and on a subject such as immigration – and the way in which the issue should be discussed – I can’t see why we have to maintain the fiction that everyone in the government must agree with one another on everything. Better, surely, to acknowledge that there’s a government-sponsored policy but even within the government, it being a coalition and all, not everyone considers the policy ideal. Or is that only allowed when disgruntled Conservatives complain that the Lib Dems are “dragging” the coalition to the left?
It may well be that, as James says, Cable automatically – and mistakenly – assumes the worst of anyone who raises concerns about immigration. Perhaps he isn’t entirely rational on the subject. On the other hand, perhaps his own personal experience has something to do with that. In 1968 Cable married his first wife, a Kenyan woman of Goanese descent, and his father was not best pleased:
‘He was a child of the Empire and a man of his time. He tried to dissuade me, telling me I was taking leave of my senses and that one mustn’t marry from another race.
‘It was partly about my welfare – he thought there would be racial and cultural conflicts – but it was also about what his neighbours would think. He had risen to become a person of some significance in York, as president of the Builders’ Guild, and to him this was shocking.’
In Olympia, however, Vince had found a remedy to the shortcomings of Cable family life.
Unlike his mother, Olympia was ‘dynamic, full of fire and life, and very feisty’. Unlike his father, she was ‘ emotionally warm’.
Vince saw with her the chance to create a marriage very different to that of his parents. By taking that chance, he effectively excommunicated himself from Yorkshire.
‘After we married my father literally said, “I don’t want to have anything to do with you,” and we had four years with no communications of any sort.’
Perhaps he does think most of those raising concerns about immigration are motivated by racial animus (he’d be wrong in some cases) but if that’s true I suspect his experience of a mixed-race marriage in 1970s Glasgow probably has something to do with it.
[Thanks to CC]
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