William Quill

In The Storm, Vince Cable, Deputy Leader and Shadow Chancellor of the Liberal Democrats, outlines the bizarre Alice in Wonderland nature of trade negotiations argued on protectionist assumptions.

The main trading countries have been locked for several years in negotiations that centre on the following proposition: you agree to stop shooting yourself in the foot by paying out subsidies and hurting your consumers through costly import restrictions, and we shall, reluctantly, do the same. Or, more accurately, if you refuse to stop shooting yourself in the foot, we shall also refuse to and, indeed, shoot ourselves in both feet, just to show that we are more serious.