As the Lib Dems and the Tories negotiate over power-sharing in number 10 the question that’s being asked by the Tory-supporting Telegraph no less, is “could George Osborne be sacrificed for Vince Cable?”

And so InVinceCable, the apolitical campaign that is seeking to instigate conversations around the need for a qualified candidate to hold the position of Chancellor, moves into a new phase.

“Well, we wanted to wait awhile for fear of calling it too early, but now that it’s the afternoon of the day after, it’s clear. We have undoubtedly got ourselves a hung parliament, which is most excellent news for the country. Why? Because now Vince Cable can be chancellor.”

But maybe we need to be careful what we wish for – economic vision and leadership becomes an even more critical in a hung parliament. Yesterday was not a good day on the financial markets, particularly for banking stocks.

Cable, with his tough talking on the deficit and banking reform, must have a role in the Cabinet and the Treasury in the event of a power sharing agreement.

“The coming week will be characterised by political machinations […] and this is just the moment then that the InVinceCable We Trust campaign comes into its own. So on Sunday 9 May, which also happens to be Vince’s 67th birthday, we’d like everyone to blog and comment and tweet and write to MPs of all colours to demand that Vince Cable be made chancellor.”

Follow @InVinceCable and visit the InVinceCable web site for more information about how to get involved.

Photo via LibDems on Flickr.

So here we are, the week of Election 2010. Bremner, Bird and Fortune claim there’s been just two highlights worth recalling to date: “I agree with Nick” and “bigotted”.

Perhaps the Chancellors’ Debate and Vince’s unchallenged supremacy was too early in the campaign, or perhaps it just wasn’t sufficiently comedic for Bremner and chums to relive; we definitely don’t think the prospect of George Osborne in Number 11 is funny.

So let’s quickly remind ourselves of our objective:

To harness a groundswell of the UK electorate such that, in the event of a hung parliament, the Prime Minister has no choice but to invite Vince Cable to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Will we have a hung parliament? It’s looking a little less likely than last time we emailed but we have to plan now regardless.

Blog Vince Day – 9th May 2010

One of the ideas that emerged from the #invincecable campaigner twitter brainstorm of the 20th April was the idea of a “Blog Vince Day” this coming Sunday, in the event of there being a hung parliament of course.

The week commencing 10th May 2010 will be a week of political machinations in the event of a hung parliament, and this is just the moment then that the InVinceCable We Trust campaign comes into its own. So on Sunday 9th May, which also happens to be Vince’s 67th birthday, we’d like everyone to blog and comment and Tweet and write to MPs of all colours to demand that Vince Cable be made chancellor.

Together, we will remind them of the Chancellors’ Debate and the popular consensus. We will remind them that current economic conditions require the best man for the job, and not the best man to suit other political ambitions and back room agreements. There are many hard decisions to be made, and we don’t want a career politician who hasn’t even run a corner shop. We want Vince Cable.

I do hope you can join in on Blog Vince Day as this campaign’s voice is only as loud as all the contributory voices.

Until then, happy voting.

You can submit questions for the debate on the BBC website here, and we’ve been encouraging as many people as possible to submit the following question:

“In the event of a hung parliament, do you agree that Vince Cable is the person best-qualified to hold the position of chancellor of the exchequer?”

It’ll only take a few seconds of your time and we think – given what all the polls are saying – that it’s an incredibly relevant one.

But it’s not only in cold, hard economic terms where Vince’s numbers add up to the winning total. With proper nouns now being allowed in Scrabble he manages to take top prize there too.

‘Vince Cable’ will score you a tidy 19 (without any double or triple letter or word bonuses). ‘Alistair Darling’ and ‘George Osborne’ – despite both containing more letters – will only net you a miserly 17 apiece. And if you use the full ‘Vincent’ you’ll get another couple of points on top. A bonus we can all be happy with.

If you don’t believe us, you can check our sums on the scrabble score calculator.

“Ah, yes,” mutter the smartarses, “but ‘Vincent’ is Cable’s middle name. His real first name is John.”

OK, OK. In the interests of fair play we’ll use the candidates’ proper full names. John Vincent Cable, Alistair Maclean Darling and Gideon Oliver Osborne (stop sniggering at the back…)

The scores on the doors? Cable, 35. Darling 28. Osborne, 26.

This is starting to look like an opinion poll, isn’t it?

Rory Cellan-Jones took the opportunity to present the InVinceCable website to viewers of BBC 24 this lunchtime. (BBC 24 News isn’t available on iPlayer, but if we can get hold of the video or a still we’ll post it here.)

Rory is covering Election 2012 from a digital / social media perspective. Having referenced our campaign in a blog post on the 24th March, Rory obviously considers the work we’re all doing on the campaign to have achieved a certain momentum warranting the BBC’s attention.

Perhaps it was our making Vince the Mayor of Number 11 Downing Street?! Perhaps it’s our new tongue-in-cheek video? Perhaps it’s because our Crowd Flutter had William Hill suspend bets and then shorten the odds on Vince becoming Chancellor? Perhaps it’s everything, little, cheeky or more substantial, that we’re all getting stuck in to.

Please do register your interest in the campaign by completing the short form on our website, or joining our Facebook group, or following our tweets, or wearing our Twibbon, or all of these and more! BBC or not, we’re only as successful as the number of voices we can bring together.

Our objective is simple: To harness a groundswell of the UK electorate such that, in the event of a hung parliament, the Prime Minister has no choice but to invite Vince Cable to be Chancellor of the Exchequer.

Thanks.

Now you could say FourSquare remains nascent. You could argue that there wasn’t much competition for the venue. But that’s missing the point… we just did it. It took 7 minutes and 42 seconds. And here’s screenshots to prove it, and the first all important media coverage too.

With your support, in fact only with your support, we might be able to announce a different position for Dr. Cable at 11 Downing Street come 7th May 2010.

According to a post by Sandamali Zbyszewski, Ladbrokes have cut the odds on our man Vince Cable becoming chancellor from 16/1 to 10/1. Lib Dem spokesman, Nick Weinberger told politics.co.uk: “This is quite surprising but we think it’s because the media are talking up the likelihood of a hung parliament.”

Maybe but less than two weeks ago our campaign caused William Hill to suspend all bets on Vince Cable for Chancellor following the success of #invincecable’s #crowdflutter.

Let’s have have a quick look at the odds on offer elsewhere today:

- William Hill are offering 7/1 for Vince Cable to deliver the first budget of the next government (Darling 8/1, Osborne 2/5)

- Paddy Power are offering 4/1 for Chancellor of the Exchequer being the most senior job held by a Lib Dem in a hung parliament. While Vince Cable as Chancellor outright is at 8/1 (Darling 7/2, Osborne 4/11)

- Betfair on the other hand have Vince Cable at 9/1 with Osborne at 3/1… but no sign of Darling on the betting sheet at the moment.

It seems that in the bookies’ eyes Vince Cable has leapfrogged Darling as Britain’s next Chancellor. Just Osborne to go!

Night all

Chris

There seems to be a bit of a misunderstanding about what will happen in the hung parliament that now seems inevitable. The misunderstanding is that Nick Clegg will find it difficult to extract concessions from Gordon Brown and that a Lib-Lab coalition would be tricky to put together. He won’t and it wouldn’t. In fact it has the air of inevitability about it. If he wants, Clegg can have the alternative vote, he can get Vince Cable into the Treasury, himself a nice cabinet job and junior posts for others, and, far more important, an agreed four-year programme for economic recovery and reducing the budget deficit.

Sean completes this paragraph with the assertion “Job done”. We love his optimism, but we have a long way to go yet, including the need to coalesce and focus public sentiment on this outcome.

However, for some reason best known to the editor of the Times article, they cut a quote from a Tweet by business and tech journalist @chrisgreen. See if you can spot the difference!

As quoted in the Times:

I’m a paid-up card-carrying member of the Conservatives. Vince Cable for Chancellor #askthechancellors.

Original Tweet:

I’m a paid-up card-carrying member of the Conservatives, but even I have to say: Vince Cable for Chancellor #invincecable #askthechancellors

Oh well, guess we’ll have to keep plugging away until the traditional media takes note.

Later today, the Twittersphere took some time to poke fun at the leader of the Conservative Party, David Cameron, who reportedly complained about the clapping from the audience to contributions from Dr. Cable.

Wow! Did he really want Krishnan to stop people clapping, to stop them from showing their appreciation? David, that’s kinda what an audience is for… kinda what they do. And this story also made the Times today: “Tories take fright from viewers’ reaction to Vince Cable in debate“.