Yesterday evening Sir Vince Cable gave a talk about his new book, After The Storm, as the latest event on the Swindon Festival of Literature and I was fortunate enough to meet with him afterwards to find out more about it.
Sat at a table in the artificially lit, canteen like deli of the Swindon Arts Centre, following a book signing for many of the people who had attended the talk, Vince Cable explains to me how After The Storm gives a unique view of the UK’s response to the financial crisis from within Government.
“With the advantage of my having been in Government for five years trying to deal with some of the aftermath, it is informed by real experience of policy, as well as hindsight about the crisis”.
Continuing Cable explains his motivation for writing the book “I felt that we all now have a better understanding about what happened in 2008, but what is perhaps not generally understood is that we’ve still got big legacy problems, which I talk about in the book.”
Cable, the Secretary of State for Business from 2010 to 2015 and former MP for Twickenham, has written ‘After The Storm: The World Economy & Britain’s Economic Future’ as the sequel to his well received book ‘The Storm: The World Economic Crisis & What it Means’ that was released in 2009 covering the financial crisis of the previous year.
While no longer in office, Cable still has serious concerns regarding the current state of the UK economy.
“There is less of a sense of drama, of crisis, the economy appears to have returned back to normal and that’s why we need to get into the detail of it. The metophor I use is that we had the equivalent of an economic heart attack in 2008, but we’re still on the life support system and very cheap money. We’re not back to normal and the position is still quite fragile.
“The legacy problems of the crisis are still there, and we also have these long term issues in the UK of an unbalanced economy, lack of exports, low productivity, all those things I was trying to address through the Industrial Strategy.”
By now Cable’s passion gives me the impression that he left Government in 2015 with unfinished business, so I ask him if the book covered some of the things he’d been hoping to do had he remained in office.
“It’s partly analysis, but half the book is about what you do next.
“Some of the things we did, which I fear the Tories may now be trying to roll back like Industrial Strategy, but there are also things we should be doing and didn’t do, particularly the mess in the housing market, which I fear the current Government is making worse.”
It must be said that the UK and global economy is not an easy subject for most people – if it was there would probably not have been a crisis and continuing aftermath – so I asked if it is an easy book to read.
“It’s not technical. I mean I am an economist, that’s how I made my living before I became an MP, but there’s no algebra. You’ll find from comments I’ve received that non-economists will find it easy to follow. I do try to write in accessible English.”
As well as Cable’s continuing great passion and sharp mind when it comes to the economy, impressive for someone who turns 73 next week, it is clear he is equally as passionate about literature and writing, having numerous books and papers published in the last four decades.
As our chat concludes he throws in “I’ve never written fiction before so I’ve wrtten a novel that should appear next year, hopefully to show I can write!”
After The Storm is published by Atlantic Books and is available from most UK book retailers.
