Vince Cable brushes aside leadership suggestions

Business Secretary Vince Cable tours the exhibition stands at the Liberal Democrat spring conference Credit: Press Association

The Business Secretary Vince Cable today brushed aside suggestions that he harboured ambitions to succeed Nick Clegg as Liberal Democrat leader.

"Absolutely not," he insisted to me as he toured the stands at the Lib Dem Spring Conference in Brighton.

But it was clear from his reception and the large press pack on his heels, that Vince remains immensely popular - the man many see as the only true Liberal Democrat voice in the Cabinet.

His comments in today's Guardian certainly won't have endeared him to the Chancellor, George Osborne. He called for more capital spending on house-building and an end to the ring-fencing of certain key spending departments in order to prevent more cuts that do what he suggested was 'disproportionate damage'.

But he denied he was breaching Cabinet collective responsibility by speaking out on the issue.