Cable delivers the right message at TheCityUK dinner
WITH Vince Cable delivering the keynote speech, guests at TheCityUK’s annual dinner last night may have been hoping the business secretary would provide the inside track on how the much-anticipated sell-off of Royal Mail was going.
But Cable was firmly on message –“I may have something of a reputation for pushing ministerial boundaries, but that would be a step too far” – instead drilling home to guests the importance of SME financing to UK growth. Elsewhere TheCityUK chairman Gerry Grimstone – something of a sell-off guru himself, having helped plan much of Thatcher’s privatisation scheme – paid tribute to invitees both present and missing. Thanking outgoing advisory council chair Sir Win Bischoff, Grimstone also paused to remember absent friends, apologising on behalf of two guests “who have sadly fallen by the wayside as part of yesterday’s reshuffle”.