Shameless Business Secretary Vince Cable blamed workers yesterday for the millions in public cash lost in the Royal Mail privatisation scandal.

Mr Cable faced an emergency question from Labour in Parliament after a National Audit Office (NAO) report slammed his sell-off.

The report laid bare how bankers who snapped up bargain shares in what was Britain's oldest public service are now making millions as the share prices continue to soar.

Shares were 38 per cent higher than the original sale price on the first day's trading and have now gained 72 per cent, raking in more than £1 billion for shareholders.

But Mr Cable stunned the Commons as he attempted to sidestep responsibility and pin the blame on workers who went on strike to save the service.

He said prices started low because Royal Mail was "surrounded by a great deal of volatility" including "uncertainty over industrial relations."

"The mere mention last week of a Unite strike took the stock price down by 20p," he told MPs.

"That was the context in which we were having to make the sale."

Left Labour MP Dennis Skinner made clear to Cable his excuses wouldn't wash with voters at next year's election.

And he said: "The postmen and women that have been slagged off by him at the dispatch box today will talk about it on every single doorstep.

"What they also want to know is that not one single penny from those priority bidders finishes up in the Tory Party and Liberal Party pockets."

Labour shadow business secretary Chuka Umuna, who posed the question, said his statement could only have been made on April Fool's Day.

"There's no doubt about it, this report delivers a damning verdict on the government's botched privatisation and it has left taxpayers disgracefully shortchanged," he argued.

"They simply refused to entertain the notion that it could succeed in public hands when financial results for
last year showed a trebling of profits."

Even Tory MP Brian Binley described the fire sale as "immoral and unethical."