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DERMOT MURNAGHAN: As the Conservatives descend into almost civil war and the Labour leader is facing criticism for not sharing a platform with the Prime Minister, you’d forgive David Cameron for perhaps wanting his old coalition colleagues to be back making the case to remain in the European Union.  Of course they still are although Lib Dem numbers are thin on the ground after their  devastating general election result last year.  The former Business Secretary, Sir Vince Cable joins me now from Twickenham, a very good morning to you Sir Vince and as you survey from outside government, all this Conservative infighting what is your take on that and its impact on the referendum campaign?  

SIR VINCE CABLE: Well during the general election you’ll remember we had this slogan ‘It’s Cameron or chaos’ and it looks as if we are getting Cameron and chaos but that’s sort of grief from last year, I am trying to focus on the referendum campaign. I think what was said this morning about he immigration target was actually quite interesting, from Mr Gove and Boris Johnson.  I mean I and the Liberal Democrats argued throughout the coalition that it was not sensible to have a rigid immigration target that couldn’t be met.  It isn’t just because of migration from the European Union, you can’t control emigration from Britain.  I mean we’ve not East Germany or North Korea and of course if you manage to reduce British emigration, if British people stay at home and work at home you of course then make the net immigration position worse so it was a foolish target to have met and you have got different groups of people – you’ve got asylum seekers, workers, families, overseas students who are not actually immigrants at all – all in the same number and we urged them to drop this target because it wasn’t achievable but they repeated it again in 2015.  So I think the basic point that Mr Gove is making is actually valid in its own terms  that they shouldn’t have done this but I don’t remember him speaking up at the time about it.  

DM: But what you are also saying by implication, not even by implication, what you said to him presumably to his face when you were in government is relax about it, it’s due to economic growth in the main that so many members of the European Union want to come to the UK to work and if the economy should turn down a bit they’ll go away again and it’s okay for UK citizens then to go and work in other EU countries.

SIR VINCE CABLE: That’s exactly right, that is the case we would make, that emigration, immigration is very much driven by the economy, Britain is currently going through a phase of growth and we all hope it will be sustained, we’ve got very low unemployment at the moment and again we hope it will be sustained.  It may not be but as long as it is you are going to get people coming to the UK looking for work and filling vacancies and I think the key development this morning is the big story of large numbers of people who do economics, my field, in business as well, economic society.  Economists are often accused of having two different views on everything but actually on this issue they are virtually unanimous that the economic case for staying in, for Remain, has largely been won.  The economic evidence is pretty overwhelming, business is arguing this case again overwhelmingly, most independent assessments of the likely consequences are all pointing in the same direction.  

DM: What’s your view on this suggestion from one of the back benchers from within the Conservative party that Mr Cameron is causing so many problems within his party, annoying so many members of the party, that they may well come for him after the referendum even if he’s won it and remove him and suggestions there could be another general election this year.  

SIR VINCE CABLE: Well that’s their private grief, I don’t want to get involved in who should be leading the Tory party. It would actually be very difficult to hold a general election this year because we now have fixed term parliaments and Mr Cameron got elected and his party won in seats like mine in Twickenham on the basis that they were going to provide us with five years of stable government and not run to the country again in chaotic conditions.  I mean he’s won the election, he’s got his mandate, he should get on and run the country and I hope his country show a bit more of a sense of responsibility than they are currently showing.  

DM: Do you feel any sympathy for him, having seen it up close and personal…?

SIR VINCE CABLE: Yes, I do have some sympathy with him, yes.  I didn’t agree with him on everything but I do have some sympathy with him, he had to come to a decision on British membership, he came to a decision, he’s followed through on it, he’s tried to renegotiate our conditions, I think actually has delivered some reasonably sensible outcomes and is now trying to lead this campaign which hi am part of so yes, I do have some sympathy with him and people who were perfectly happy to go along with him in the last parliament are now turning on him and it doesn’t reflect very well on them I don't think.  

DM: Do you think in terms of the tone of the Remain campaign, you have heard the accusations of Project Fear and over egging things and flying kites that are never going to happen or do you think he is just making and obviously you and others are just making some perfectly reasonable points?  

SIR VINCE CABLE: Well there are extremes on both sides of the argument, of course but I think we are trying to make a dispassionate case and the most extreme and discredited comments, these analogies with Hitler and Napoleon and this 350 million a day which has been denounced by the independent statistical authority, they are coming from the other side and I am sure there are people on our side who occasionally exaggerate but on balance we are trying to make a reasoned case and wherever possible making use of people who are politically independent, who have no axe to grind.  The key intervention last week was the Institute for Fiscal Studies, a highly respected body that attacks all governments for their fiscal performance and nobody can question their integrity, they came out very clearly in terms of the cost of the budget of leaving the European Union.  Bodies like the IMF who have no axe to grind whatever in this and taking a very strong and clear view, the World Trade Organisation which presides over world trade and people like Boris Johnson say we should rely on the World Trade Organisation, saying it’s all very difficult if we leave.  Those are the key people that we should be listening to.

DM: It must be said that not everyone within the Remain side is perhaps so thoughtful as you when they get information like that, there’s a bit of spin added to it and we end up with Third World Wars and never ending recessions, do you think they are overdoing it a bit on the Remain side?

SIR VINCE CABLE: There is exaggeration, I conceded that point a few moments ago.  I don’t expect that we are going to get Armageddon either way but I think the balance of evidence is very clearly that it is in Britain’s interests and particularly on the economic side in terms of living standards and jobs if we stay in and I think if the arguments are couched at that level and not in terms of some vast explosion that would happen if we leave, I think that people would get that and they already have.  I think the economic argument has been largely won.

DM: Great talking to you as ever, Sir Vince, thank you very much indeed, Sir Vince Cable there.