Vince Cable has been looking like he swallowed a bee ever since Cleggmania took off. His announcement today that he is resigning as deputy leader of the LibDems is transparently a piece of positioning. Cameron manages to combine being party leader with being PM and Clegg somehow copes with being deputy PM and party leader.

Is it therefore really believable that Cable can’t cope with being deputy party leader and a Minister overseeing a contracting department? Isn’t he just distancing himself from the Cleggies?

UPDATE : Cable is the punters favourite to be the first Minister to resign from the cabinet.

Wounded Vince Cable’s performance on Newsnight last night was classic Cableism. He backtracked, flip-flopped and was forced to accept, live on television, that his hated rival Osborne had been right all along. There was pain in those eyes, you would have to have a heart of stone not to laugh.

He’s the punters favourite to be first to leave the Cabinet, but last night he was painfully walking the collective responibility line. Some have been expressing surprise at his changing of position, but it’s not as if he hasn’t flip-flopped before is it:

Cleggmania saw the beginning of the eclipse of Cable, his role was vastly downgraded to just having his picture on the side of the campaign bus. He may have predicted the eighteen of the last two recessions, but if Vince is such a sage, why didn’t he foresee a situation where he would be reporting to Osborne? If he is such a sage why did he have to wait to be told by the Bank of England that cuts were needed immediately? Let’s hope he’s not relying on his runes to workout how to start cutting £836m from his department.

Regardless of your views on the new hair do, a slightly more aggressive Osborne scored an unexpected victory at this afternoon’s Chancellors Debate. The CCHQ debate preparation team take note – anger works.

Osborne was helped in no uncertain terms by the music hall duo of Flanders and Neil beasting Cable on his reputation and record. These two have history, but the old yellow sage was left speechless by Brillo’s “Isn’t the biggest myth of the election your reputation?”

Guy News Special in the edit right now…

Having been the front man for the entire LibDem campaign until 45 minutes into the Leader’s Debate, Vince has all but disappeared into the background this week.  No longer the nation’s favourite politician, his soothsaying sage act is also washing a little thin. Inflation figures released yesterday were higher than Cable expected again at 3.4%, leading him to claim that ”the inflation rise appears to be a blip caused by things that are out of our control...”

But that’s not how he saw it when he was reading his magical economic runes three months ago in January, then he said with his characteristic bluffer’s confidence “these figures are almost certainly a temporary spike.”  Doesn’t seem too temporary to Guido,* in fact when you print £200 billion and call it quantitative easing (as supported by Cable), you inevitably get inflation.

Perhaps if Clegg would let him back on the platform, he might be able to explain why inflation has remained high and got even worse over the last three months. Could certainly liven up this afternoon’s Chancellor’s Debate…

*Have you taken Guido’s advice?

Fraser Nelson is scathing about the LibDem’s VAT poster, calling it “the most dishonest poster of the campaign”.

Jon Sopel asked Vince today “Would you rule out raising VAT?” to which Vince replied “No, I don’t.”

So we could see an unquantified VAT bomb from a LibDem coalition government. Or pehaps not. Vince won’t say clearly one way or the other…

We haven’t had a bit of evidence-based blogging for a while so Guido has fired up the chart to to bring you this comparison of the Tory and Labour spending plans.

Alistair Darling said in the budget he was taking action to cut the deficit by £57 billion, the Tories say they will go £6 billion further, faster. This £6 billion is what they are boring on about when Gordon disingenuously claims Tories will cut core services and undermine the recovery. £6 billion is less than 1% of government spending and is equal to a mere two weeks of this government’s unfunded over-spending.

Spot the difference? £6 billion is a mere rounding error that still leaves both parties with plans for unfunded over-spending of more than £150 billion. Not much difference is there really?

Dull with no big thrills or spills. Maybe it won’t be the TV debates that decide. The consensus tomorrow will be that Cable benefitted the most…

Vince Cable says this of the recapitalisation of Barclays:

The FT doesn’t mince words – “Vince Cable, Loony” :

Guido has said it before; Vince Cable’s real expertise is in soundbites and faux gravitas.