Vince, Matthew, Craig and Brian
Vince Cable told Lord Justice (Sir Brian) Leveson that he thought there had been “veiled threats” from News Corp, suggesting that the Lib Dems would be “done over” by News International newspapers if they felt Vince Cable took decisions that worked against them.
Dr Cable suggested he thought the person making those threats was Nick Clegg’s old tennis partner, the News International lobbyist, Fred Michel.
Vince Cable said he’d been given the information privately and didn’t want to reveal his source. News International’s lawyer, Rhodri Davies QC, tried to press Vince Cable for any details of the alleged threats. Vince Cable said he believed they were made in November 2010, after the “intervention notice” and before the Telegraph sting and that he’d been “seriously disturbed” by them.
In the course of his evidence, Dr Cable has come across his own “adviser problem” – even if it’s of a very different order to the one faced by Jeremy Hunt.
The News International lobbyist Fred Michel appears to have been having chats with Lib Dem peer Lord (Matthew) Oakeshott (perhaps Lord Newby too) and passing on those chats back up the News International chain as revealing the inner thoughts of the Cabinet minister himself (sound familiar?).
Dr Cable has been emphasising that Lord Oakeshott was someone he listened to, especially on banking industry matters, but denied that he was someone who talked to him “10 times a day” (“wildly inaccurate,” according to Vince Cable).
Vince Cable’s relationship with Lord Oakeshott has troubled some top Lib Dems. Lord Oakeshott is an omni-present political figure, generating stories and comment that often infruriates Lib Dem staffers. Some of his profile comes from his own dilligence and story sniffing, some from a perceived closeness to Vince Cable.
A senior Lib Dem explained the bond between the two men: “both [Vince Cable and Lord Oakeshott] share a loathing of big wealth and those that have it – even though Oakeshott’s pretty well-off.” The same source said that he estimated that Oakeshott speaks on Vince’s actual behalf “about half the time,” but “the other half [is] freelancing.”
I hear that Dr Cable was narked by the words of Dowing Street’s Head of Communications, Craig Oliver when he was caught remonstrating with the BBC’s Norman Smith – “Vince Cable … had proven himself to be biased.” As Vince Cable just told the Leveson Inquiry, he thought his remarks in the Telegraph sting gave “the perception of bias.”
He does not think he was biased in the execution of his quasi-judicial responsibilites. He added that he thought the Telegraph conducted the series of stings on Lib Dem ministers because the paper was anti-Coalition.