Cable attacks American ‘right-wing nutters’
Vince Cable has attacked the “right-wing nutters” in the US who are threatening to cripple the world economy. The Business Secretary also said there were “big questions” about the Murdoch empire.
Mr Cable said the row over whether to raise the American government’s debt ceiling was a more serious crisis than the eurozone’s problems.
Speaking on the BBC’s Andrew Marr show, he also suggested the Bank of England may have to engage in more quantitative easing – effectively printing money – as growth stalls.
Mr Cable said the deal struck in Europe last week to bail out countries such as Greece and Ireland had been a “significant step forward”, without solving the fundamental issues.
But he added: “The irony of the situation at the moment, with markets opening tomorrow morning, is that the biggest threat to the world financial system comes from a few right-wing nutters in the American congress rather than the eurozone.”
Mr Cable said the Government wanted to see the euro succeed, even though Britain was not a part of it.
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With GDP figures this week expected to suggest that growth has stalled, the senior Liberal Democrat conceded that the economy was “not great”.
“It isn’t great, and it is not surprising that it isn’t great because of the problems we inherited,” he said.
‘Big questions over Murdoch’
The Business Secretary also said there where are “big questions” over whether Rupert Murdoch’s empire is fit and proper to control a UK broadcaster in the wake of the phone-hacking scandal.
Mr Cable also revealed there had been “heavy lobbying” by News Corporation over its bid for full ownership of BSkyB, following reports that some Liberal Democrats felt they had been “bullied”.
The Cabinet minister insisted no media firm should be allowed to wield the same influence in the UK again.
Mr Cable was stripped of responsibility for deciding the fate of the BSkyB deal last year after he was recorded in a newspaper sting saying he was at “war” with Mr Murdoch.
The MP stressed today that there was nothing “personal” about recent concerns raised about the media mogul.
“The balanced historical view would be that he has made positive contributions,” he said.
“But we are dealing with the world as it actually is, where we have had a very, very dominant media company and we need to deal with the lessons from that.”