I predicted yesterday that it would only be a matter of time before Vince Cable weighed in after the head of the CBI told the FT yesterday that it would be a mistake to carry out bank reforms while Britain is still in the economic doldrums.
In a Times interview, the business secretary has criticised the banks’ “special pleading“. He says that the markets chaos, if anything, proves the need to make banks even stronger – to prevent a future bailout.
The report by Sir John Vickers is now less than two weeks away and the Treasury denies strongly that there is already a row between Vince and George Osborne. (The FT reported recently that some banks don’t expect the internal ring-fences to be imposed until 2019 – which would be unacceptable to the Lib Dems.) That doesn’t mean that there isn’t one looming.
Jim Pickard
Kiran Stacey