Cable makes comeback after two years

Sir Vince was elected to his former constituency of Twickenham, Teddington and the Hamptons with a healthy majority.

The 74-year-old ousted the Conservatives’ Dr Tania Mathias, who snatched the seat in 2015 with a majority of just 2,017.

Sir Vince held the seat from 1997 up to the last General Election, and was made business secretary in one of the cabinet appointments given to the junior partners in the coalition in 2010.

Cambridge-educated and with a doctorate from Glasgow University, Sir Vince has had a long career in finance and government, working variously as a treasury finance office for the Kenyan government, first secretary in the diplomatic service, deputy director of the Overseas Development Institute as special adviser on economic affairs for the Commonwealth Secretary General. In the 1990s he worked for oil giant Shell International, becoming their chief economist in 1995, before being elected to parliament in 1997.

He was Lib Dem spokesman on trade and industry, and then the party’s shadow chancellor from 2003 until 2010, when the party entered coalition with the Tories and he became business, innovation and skills secretary.

He was the only senior politician to predict the economic crash, and has written several books on economics.