How to Be a Politician by Vince Cable review – teachings of the former Lib Dem leader | Politics books

HHave you ever thought about going into politics? Oh come on – if Boris Johnson can do it, it can’t be that hard. And if things don’t go as planned, you can always quickly write a book about it, as former Liberal Democrat leader Vince Cable did.

Much like the coalition cabinet in which Cable was once a prominent figure, How to Be a Politician is an odd mix of half-funny career talks like many MPs probably uttered to sixth-graders in their constituencies, and half-loo book. It’s filled, to a fairly eye-opening extent, with page after page of well-known quotes from famous politicians that may not have led a researcher to Google for too long, roughly grouped by topics such as government activity or dealing with failure. Each chunky selection of other people’s jokes is preceded by a short essay by Cable, drawing on the experience of his own half-century in politics, and liberally sprinkled with even more quotes from other famous politicians that are presumably left over from the research process ( there’s a lot of “To quote George Bush” or “As Pericles put it…”).

It’s not as cheerfully whimsical as Gerald Kaufman’s classic How to Be a Minister primer, and unlike Jess Phillips’ funny and heartfelt The Life of an MP, it’s not particularly intimate or confessional – the author is wary of insider gossip from the administration far from where he belonged. But the advice Cable offers is clear, concise and perfectly reasonable, and while much of it isn’t new to anyone already working in and around Westminster, it would be accessible to someone trying to break into this most mysterious of cliques on the outside. He also scrupulously ensures that it applies across all parties and political traditions. Cable’s own career began in the Labor Party, where he was special adviser to the late John Smith, before defecting to the SDP/Liberal Alliance and eventually being elected Lib Dem – this lack of tribalism gives him an unusual insight into how the other parties work .

Not that some things aren’t universal, of course. There are two ways, Cable writes, for an ambitious young MP to get ahead: one is to make a brilliant, flashy intervention that will get everyone talking about you, but “the other, more common route is submissiveness.” . If you crawl long enough, you’ll probably get some kind of job. As for going into politics thinking you’re going to change the world, Cable suggests saving the sober stuff for his speeches: In this job, “your heart may be in the right place, but it’s more important that you make your head spin on the right path”.

While the author’s pragmatic tone stays right on the right side of bitterly cynical, I wonder how well he’s likely speaking to Gen Z activists with their passionate and often absolutist beliefs and their expectation of putting their “whole selves” to work . How many idealistic teenagers today even want to spend years dragging themselves up the greasy pole in traditionally elected politics, national or even local, when issue-driven campaigns and grassroots movements so often seem to be where the energy lies? A little more research into how political activism can work outside of traditional party structures might have been a useful addition.

But there’s nothing terribly wrong with this book, or nothing really beyond the lingering suspicion that the author’s heart isn’t quite in writing it. After all, he has already finished his memoirs. Something tells me that this book isn’t so much the passion project he’s been burning his whole life for as the latest thing to end up crossing his desk that he’s nonetheless tried to do a decent job at. But then again, isn’t that all politics?