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Vince Cable forced to deny claims of leadership coup involvement

THE fallout from the Liberal Democrat’s catastrophic showing in the local and Euro elections continued yesterday with Business Secretary Vince Cable being forced to deny suggestions he was involved in an attempted coup against party leader Nick Clegg.

Lib Dem peer Lord Oakeshott, a long-time critic of Mr Clegg, resigned on Wednesday after it emerged he had commissioned a series of polls that indicated the party’s general election performance would improve if Mr Clegg resigned.

Mr Cable, a close ally of Mr Oakeshott, was forced to issue statements regarding his knowledge and involvement in the polling while on a trade mission to Chinese capital Beijing.

He told the BBC that he wanted to make it “absolutely clear” he was backing Mr Clegg.

“People are putting round the story that there is some division on that. There is not. I made it absolutely clear from the beginning of this week that there is absolutely no leadership issue,” he said.

“We have a united team. We have clearly got to recover from the very difficult election and I’m part of that team and will be supporting the leader.”

Asked whether he had behaved disloyally by not telling Mr Clegg the secret polls were being carried out, he replied: “There was no disloyalty whatever. There were some polls being carried out, lots of polls carried out in the party and in other parties.”

He insisted he had “absolutely no knowledge of” the surveys which were conducted in Sheffield Hallam and Inverness — the constituencies of the Lib Dem leader and Danny Alexander, Chief Secretary to the Treasury.

“It is part of professional politics, finding out what is going on. I had a poll in my own constituency, related entirely to my local election campaign … There were others, which I have condemned, which took place, as I understand it, in Sheffield and Inverness.”

The increasingly beleaguered Lib Dem leader also insisted that Mr Cable was not involved in a failed attempt to oust him.

The Deputy Prime Minister said the Business Secretary was fully supportive of his leadership and insisted he did not believe “for a second” the Cabinet minister had been behind the plot to force him out of the party’s top job.

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