General election constituency focus: majority should make Vince Cable invincible in Twickenham but the Tories want to stop him waltzing back in

 
Battle: Vince Cable with Kelly D’Arcy and her baby Cora in Twickenham (Picture: Lucy Young)

Twice in five minutes grateful constituents spontaneously buttonhole the senior Cabinet minister they call “Vince” and thank him effusively for having sorted out a problem.

The incumbent member for Twickenham is out campaigning on his bike in the blossom-strewn residential streets of St Margarets, fighting for the sixth time the seat he has held since 1997. In his brown corduroy jacket he looks pleased with the feedback, like an old-fashioned country GP told how well his prescription worked.

Despite the miserable single digit ratings of the Liberal Democrats nationally, Vince Cable is rated a shoo-in by the bookies, which are quoting odds of seven to one on for him to see off the latest Tory challenge.

Certainly on paper Twickenham looks safe enough. The Business Secretary is one of very few Liberal Democrats to win more than 50 per cent of the vote in the last two elections and is defending a majority of more than 12,000.

So he says he is perplexed by what he describes as “by far the most aggressive campaign” mounted by any of his Conservative opponents since first standing — and losing — in 1992 against his predecessor Toby Jessel.

He said: “Perhaps they know something we don’t. One cynical view is that they have so much money from their donors they are throwing it at anybody. I suppose if against the odds they do win then I would be seen as quite a big trophy.”

Vince Cable faces a challenge from Tory candidate Tania Mathias (right) seen out campaigning with Zac Goldsmith (far left) and Boris Johnson (centre) (Picture: Alan Davidson/The Picture Library Ltd)

Dr Cable says the Conservative message is not personal but designed to persuade waverers that if you vote Lib-Dem locally you get Labour in No 10.

“It’s very simple, they say to people, ‘Cable is a good bloke, a good MP but you are voting in Miliband and the Scottish Nationalists’. It is ludicrous but if it is repeated often enough it has resonance. But people have seen me in action for quite a period of time. Some will be swayed by this sort of emotional propaganda but not many.”

His opponent this time is Tania Mathias, an eye doctor and councillor who has been able to lure Tory stars including Boris Johnson and Zac Goldsmith as well as Chancellor George Osborne, Transport Secretary Patrick McLoughlin and Northern Ireland Secretary Theresa Villiers to Twickenham to support her. Opponents say she has also carpet-bombed the constituency with leaflets to convince the undecided to vote Tory.

Dr Mathias, a former UN refugee worker in the Gaza Strip, says she will “continue to campaign against Heathrow expansion” and “be the champion of local small business” in Twickenham if she is elected.

Her campaign literature makes very little reference to the politician briefly referred to as St Vince for what were seen as his prophet-like warnings about the financial apocalypse in 2008.

Instead she talks up the area: “I love the community and spirit of this place. I want to be your MP because I want to help make it even better.”

Labour’s candidate Nick Grant, in-house legal chief at Sainsbury’s, is far less reticent. He said the incumbent’s reputation as “a progressive figure came to a juddering halt in 2010” when he joined the Coalition and played a key role in unpopular policies such as the introduction of student tuition fees, the Royal Mail privatisation and the reorganisation of the NHS.

“People feel Vince has been politically compromised, I’m finding no appetite for the Lib-Dems’ lack of integrity,” he added.

Dr Cable feels he has little to fear from Labour, which has not performed better than a distant third for more than 40 years, nor from Ukip’s Barry Edwards or the Green’s Tanya Williams.

But on the doorstep there are some signs of a backlash. Louis Aldous, a local government worker aged 29, said: “I’m not sure I can vote for you, it’s the university fees I’m afraid.”

Dr Cable puts on his most sympathetic bedside manner and offers: “If you like I can go through the whole story for you.” Fortunately that proves not to be necessary, but he does admit: “I know we shouldn’t have given the pledge, it was a bad mistake, we understand your feelings about it.”

Elsewhere, in a prosperous part of the constituency where every front door seems to open on a scene of domestic bliss straight from a muesli commercial, Dr Cable gets a better response.

Former lawyer and mother of four Kelly D’Arcy says she is concerned about pressure on schools — her five-year-old did not initially secure a place last year — and the cost of childcare.

She voted Conservative in 2010 but tells Dr Cable, “it’s between you and the Greens this time. I think I’m going to be voting for you”.

Other issues that run strongly in this leafy corner of south-west London include Heathrow expansion — Dr Cable and Ms Mathias are strongly opposed but Labour is concerned about the loss of jobs — house prices and inadequate rail services. There is also concern about the possibility of Chelsea FC becoming temporary tenants of the rugby stadium that gives this suburb worldwide fame.

But there are only pockets of deprivation in the constituency and business is doing well. Dr Cable is clearly proud of successes such as the rejuvenated Twickenham Studios, where films such as Zulu, War Horse and Blade Runner were filmed or mixed.

At 71, the former Shell economist is by the far the oldest candidate in the race but he says he still finds time for his sacrosanct Friday night ballroom dancing session with his partner Cheyenne Russell. He has been dancing for decades and is now ranked at “international supreme” level, making him a sort of black belt of the cha cha cha.

If the bookmakers are right Vince Cable will comfortably waltz back to Parliament on May 7. But, in the time-honoured pre-election mantra of all Westminster politicians, he insists: “I am not taking anything for granted.”