Send Cable A Message

I do not know why the Lib Dems, at least ostensibly the party of civil liberties, are still so keen on abolishing the House of Parliament that is the most effective check against those liberties' erosion, and which, moreover, finally provides Shirley Williams with a platform from which to make herself useful by defending the NHS.

However, there is much to be said for Vince Cable's scheme, which is sending his Coalition's partners into highly amusing apoplexy, to enable shareholders to veto executive bonuses. This rather recalls the industrial democracy advocated by Cable's erstwhile Party Leader, David Owen. Especially if the employees were to be encouraged and assisted to purchase the shares in question, most obviously through their pension schemes, though by no means necessarily by that means alone. The trade unions do rather spring to mind here. In fact, why not have the controlling interests in the City bought up by the not exactly cash-strapped trade unions representing the public sector?

Anyway, Ed Miliband, to whom Owen is close, should declare his support for Cable's proposal, for a remedy against short-term shareholding by the enemies of the human race in the form of a 12-month qualifying period before voting rights could be exercised, and for mass employee purchase of the shares, including with some form of public assistance in certain cases. He should therefore and thereby challenge Cable to bring forward legislation to that effect.