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My time at Shell was a most valuable experience because it taught me to look at the world in a long-term way. Shell takes a 20-year view on events and plans for different scenarios. It makes you see the world as a kind of large matrix.

Vince Cable

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Vince Cable
Age: 81
Born: 1943
Born: May 9
British Politician
Economist
Politician
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John Vincent Cable
Vincent Cable
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More quotes by Vince Cable

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I am going to confront the old-fashioned negative thinking which says that all government needs to do to generate growth is cut worker and environmental protections, cut taxes on the rich and stroke 'fat cats' until they purr with pleasure. I'm completely repudiating the idea that government has to get out of the way.
Vince Cable
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I'm now happily remarried to a good cook, which encourages me to be lazy. I like to think that I'm a new man, but perhaps I'm not. I offset it by doing the ironing, though. She has a small farm in the New Forest with a herd of cattle, so she serves up a steak and kidney pie made with her own beef.
Vince Cable
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Billions of taxpayers' money has been wasted in bad deals. The London Underground modernisation, personally negotiated by one of Gordon Brown's team, was a disaster, as the National Audit Office has confirmed.
Vince Cable
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Regulators are a backstop: they don't own banks. The governance at the top of our leading banks has been shown to be lamentably weak. No one at the top of Barclays will take responsibility for systemic abuse.
Vince Cable
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Investment banking has, in recent years, resembled a casino, and the massive scale of gambling losses has dragged down traditional activities as banks try to rebuild their balance sheets.
Vince Cable
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The government increasingly resembles somebody who is trying to give the kiss of life to a corpse.
Vince Cable
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The food in the House of Commons is fairly good. The cafe in Portcullis House is really very high quality, and you also have a choice of eating in the more traditional restaurants, the Churchill Room or the Members' Dining Room. I don't often eat in them, though, as I'm usually on the run.
Vince Cable
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These 'masters of the universe' must be tamed in the interests of the ordinary families whose jobs and livelihoods are being put at risk. The Tories won't say anything about the current crisis as they are completely in the pockets of the hedge funds.
Vince Cable
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On banks, I make no apology for attacking spivs and gamblers who did more harm to the British economy than Bob Crow could achieve in his wildest Trotskyite fantasies, while paying themselves outrageous bonuses underwritten by the taxpayer. There is much public anger about banks and it is well deserved.
Vince Cable
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The worship of youth has diminished - perhaps generally - in recent years.
Vince Cable
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If the pendulum swings, it may swing to a combination of Conservatives and Liberal Democrats and, thus, to a period of minority government or coalition, in some form.
Vince Cable
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Much of the shadow banking sector, a major contributor to the economic crisis, was also only possible because of taxhaven secrecy.
Vince Cable
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When my job was attempting to predict future economic developments for the Shell oil company, I was frequently reminded of an Arabic saying: 'Those who claim to foresee the future are lying, even if by chance they are later proved right.'
Vince Cable
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There was, of course, a global financial crisis. But our Labour predecessors left Britain exceptionally vulnerable and damaged: more personal debt than any other major economy a dangerously inflated property bubble and a bloated banking sector behaving as masters, not the servants of the people.
Vince Cable
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The fact that John Prescott is being paid large sums of money to do little or nothing adds to the general malaise surrounding this government and the feeling that ministers are incapable of tackling serious issues.
Vince Cable
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And humility in politics means accepting that one party doesn't have all the answers recognising that working in partnership is progress not treachery.
Vince Cable
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Now the main areas of higher education that still enjoy considerable financial support from government are subjects like engineering and science and the research ringfence which is the basic minimum to protect Britain's scientific competitiveness.
Vince Cable
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I know it sounds trite but I wanted to make a difference. Political debates with my father had been fraught because he was uncompromising and explosive but if he taught me one thing it was to air my views.
Vince Cable
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Well, as I said, you know the issue of Greek debt, they've grasped the principle of debt reduction. I think most people would argue that probably more needs to be done on that front, and they've just begun to take the first steps to accepting that there's going to have to be much closer economic integration in Europe.
Vince Cable
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I don't feel comfortable with luxury, and I try to stay fairly normal.
Vince Cable