Comrade Cable - in office and in opposition too

We were all assuming that Comrade Vince Cable's assault on capitalism this morning is an oh so clever ruse to show that the Lib Dems can be in government but still have their own voice. After all, the Treasury and Downing Street have seen and approved the speech he's due to give to the Lib Dem conference so the Tories don't mind him going out on a limb to prove his Liberal credentials.

It's not quite that crass, Cable has long thought that untrammeled corporate greed often works against the long term interest of company shareholders and society. He wanted to take action when he was in opposition and now he has the chance to do it. How much of his rhetoric and the bold move to launch a "consultation" turns into hard policy remains to be seen.

The boss class have described his speech as "odd" and "emotional" in advance and it's been left to the trade unions to ride to his rescue. Labour say it's time to decide Vince - are you in government or opposition?

We've just had the one hour advance copy dropped into our in-boxes and it looks like a very humorous and clever speech, possibly the turn of the week and worth staying on in Liverpool to hear.