Twickenham MP Becomes Lib Dem Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

12.44.20pm BST (GMT +0100) Mon 13th Oct 2003

Vincent Cable MP, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer

Charles Kennedy has appointed Twickenham MP Vincent Cable to be Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer in a reshuffle announced this week. He is promoted from the Trade and Industry Portfolio.

Vincent Cable will therefore carry responsibility for presenting his party's economic policy in the period until the next General election and will debate with Gordon Brown and the Conservative spokesman Michael Howard. (There are some historical coincidences here; he followed Michael Howard as President of the Cambridge Union almost 40 years ago and wrote a book with Gordon Brown in the 1970's.)

He has a background in economic issues in government, the academic world and more recently in business where he was Chief Economist at Shell.

He said: "this is a big job; an honour but also a responsibility. Now that the three parties are roughly level pegging in the opinion polls the Lib Dems have everything to play for. A key factor will be how well my team can get across our economic message".

"I can however reassure my constituents that I have every intention of keeping up my commitment to local issues and constituency duties in Twickenham".