Former business secretary sets up his former Twickenham constituency as measure for party’s resurgence in election

Vince Cable has said the Liberal Democrats’ election success depends on him regaining his seat in Twickenham, setting up the south-west London seat as a measure for the party’s resurgence.

The Liberal Democrat grandee, who fell from coalition business secretary to ex-MP during his party’s demolition at the 2015 election, said: “Unless we win here, we’d find it difficult to claim we’d had success. This is one of the key ones we have to win.”

The most promising ground for a Lib Dem revival should be south London, where there was a high percentage of remain votes in seats won by Conservatives from former Lib Dem ministers, such as Ed Davey.



The last time Cable hit the campaign trail, the mood was dark. At 4am on election night his majority was swept away by the Conservative candidate Tania Mathias, and the Lib Dems went on to lose 49 of their 57 seats.

The leave result in the EU referendum has given the party a new message for the doorsteps. “The atmosphere amongst supporters is a bit like 1997, it’s real enthusiasm,” Cable said. “How far that translates into seats I don’t know.”

Party membership is at record levels of more than 100,000, although a Lib Dem surge failed to materialise in last week’s local elections, in which the party lost 28 seats overall.

Cable would not be drawn on the number of seats he hoped for on 8 June. “We’ve got used to being cautious these days,” he said. “We got down to eight, we were in the 60s at one point, there’s a big range of outcome.”

Polling analysis is not optimistic about the party’s prospects in its former heartlands of south-west England, given the strength of the Brexit vote in areas such as Cornwall, but the party could retake Kingston and neighbouring Sutton and Cheam on swings of less than 4% from the Tories.

Cable had said in 2015 that he would not stand again, but said yes without a second thought after May called the snap election.

“I didn’t have any problem being persuaded,” he told the Guardian at his Twickenham home, where awards from his time as an MP and minister sit haphazardly on the shelves. “As soon as it was announced I thought: ‘Oh my God, this is what we’ve been waiting for.’”

Cable, who will turn 74 next week, admitted he had not been expecting to be called up so quickly, given May had repeatedly said there would be no early election.

“I had been rather taken in by the straight-forward Theresa May, who I thought meant what she said,” he said of his time working with her in coalition. “I sort of believed the mystique, this is someone who means what they say and doesn’t play silly games. … So I was surprised.”

On the doorsteps of affluent south-west London, Brexit is the subject voters want to discuss.

Cable is spending the afternoon in Hampton Hill, which has two Lib Dem councillors and one Tory, a middle-class bellwether ward for the Lib Dems. In the drizzle which coats the polished tiles and trimmed hedges, Cable is recognised by almost everyone.

JJ Ramsland shouts “Top man!” as he spots the former cabinet minister from his doorway, as his daughter in her floral coat scoots inside from the rain. He admits, however, that he voted Conservative in the last election. “It’s Brexit that’s changed my mind,” he said. “I’m a bit of remainiac, I’m still in shock.”

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Cable talks to JJ Ramsland. Photograph: Sean Smith/The Guardian

Paul Chong is one of several locals who are apologetic about Cable’s seat loss. “He was a very good local MP, who did a good job in government. I do think people here were worried about Labour and the SNP, that was the national picture. Now that national picture is the Brexit vote.”

However, making the EU the cornerstone of their election campaign could be having the opposite effect on potential Lib Dem voters.

Christopher King greets Cable like an old friend, but once the candidate’s yellow raincoat disappears down the driveway, he is forthright.

“No way, not a chance,” he said, arms folded. “The Brexit vote showed how ultimately undemocratic and illiberal the Lib Dems are.



“The hand-wringing from people like [Lib Dem leader] Tim Farron has been unbelievable. I speak to people now who voted remain and they say they can’t believe how taken in they were by the scare stories that never happened.”

Cable publicly opposed a second referendum last year, but now says he supports the holding of one on the terms of the deal. “We got into this through a referendum and the only way of delegitimising the last one is to have another,” he said. “We are trapped in that cycle.

“In 18 months we’ll have an outcome. It could be good, I can’t see it, but one has to be generous enough to acknowledge it is theoretically possible. It could be bad or it could be a crashing out, which would be a complete catastrophe, and that is very real if there is intransigence on both sides. If that’s the case, then we are arguing the public should have the right to vote on it.”

Farron has ruled out the possibility of a coalition with the Conservatives or Labour and if Cable returns to parliament, he knows that will mean his party can have little practical influence.

“I thought in 2010 we had no choice, actually. I wasn’t an enthusiast, [but] I thought there was a national emergency, a risk of financial meltdown.

“Certainly now, there is no appetite. The difference with Theresa May and her approach to Brexit, the extreme Ukip-style Brexit, is so profound there is no way we could possibly work with her.”