Vince Cable may not become Prime Minister, but he’s still a political force to be reckoned with

The ardent pro-European outlook of the Lib Dems chimes with the young and with many who regard EU withdrawal as either economic folly or the way to social pariah status, or both

The leader of the Liberal Democrats revealed his prime-ministerial ambitions on ‘The Andrew Marr Show’ at the weekend (BBC)

Remember Eddie the Eagle? Chances are you do. Even if you’re under 30 you’ll know the story, perhaps thanks to the fact that it was made into a film starring Taron Egerton last year.

Eddie (real name Michael Edwards), you’ll recall, was the British outsider who competed in the ski jumping events at the Winter Olympics in 1988. Inept by comparison with those he was pitted against; he nonetheless talked a good game and won the hearts of the public at home and abroad, despite finishing last.

I thought of Eddie this weekend when Vince Cable told the BBC’s Andrew Marr that he thought it “perfectly plausible” that he could be a future Prime Minister. With so much focus on Boris Johnson’s provocative decision to lay out a personal vision for Brexit in Saturday’s Daily Telegraph, Cable’s remarks barely got a look in, aside from as a kind of jokey sideshow to the main event.

Let’s be honest, even if the Tories weren’t involved in yet another round of infighting, it would have seemed extraordinary for the Lib Dem leader to be quite so upbeat.

After all, his party was reduced to rubble at the 2015 election; so much so that he himself – one of the party’s most well-respected figures – lost his Twickenham seat. Were it not for Theresa May’s catastrophic decision to call a snap election earlier this year, Cable would be spending his retirement in the ballroom, having shown off his dancing skills in a relatively embarrassment-free Strictly Christmas special.

Instead, Cable is back in Parliament, at the head of a party for which the only way is – still – up. With 11 MPs at his disposal he is already doing better than Tim Farron, although that is hardly saying very much. It isn’t exactly a position from which prime ministers usually spring.

Perhaps the 74-year-old Cable was having a senior moment on The Andrew Marr Show and was confusing his position with Jeremy Corbyn’s. If anyone on the opposition benches could reasonably imagine themselves leading the country, it is surely the Labour man. A barnstorming performance at the last election not only quietened talk of internal rebellion but also seemed to prove that the country were less convinced by Labour’s apparent unelectability under Corbyn than many commentators had assumed.

Certainly the Conservatives appear intent on boosting Corbyn’s chances. The Prime Minister’s election misstep cost her party a parliamentary majority just at the moment that strength in the Commons mattered most, while her recent contention that she might lead the Tories into the next election seemed almost as unlikely as the Cable for PM line. If Boris Johnson really is planning a shock/not shock challenge to Theresa May’s headship – and especially if he succeeds – Labour would undoubtedly seize on the chance to push for yet another return to the polls.

In all the machinations presently afoot, the Liberal Democrats seem on the face of it to be simply bit parts. Cable’s call for a second referendum before Britain finally decides whether to leave the European Union seems at first glance as far removed from the main strands of even the Brexit debate – let alone broader political discourse – as the idea that he could one day run the country.

And yet, and yet.

Euro-squabbling has brought the Tories low before, most obviously during the party’s wilderness years in the 1990s. It would be quite wrong to discount the possibility that the current antagonism between hard and soft Brexiteers could eventually cause a similar implosion. As for Labour, while the party’s policy programme meets with approval, there remains scepticism about its fitness for government, as revealed in a poll for The Independent this weekend.

Cable, meanwhile, has bounced back from election defeat and can point to his own experience of government during the Coalition years. True, his role in the Cameron-Clegg administration will be used by some as a rock with which to beat him. His muddled handling of the previous Sky bid by Rupert Murdoch was a political embarrassment, while the Lib Dem support for austerity – which, while necessary, caused significant hardship for many – and for higher tuition fees, will not be easily forgiven.

Nevertheless, history may ultimately look more kindly on the Coalition – and the Lib Dems’ role in it – than critics would have it today. And on Brexit, the ardent pro-European outlook of the Lib Dems chimes with the young and with many (including MPs in other parties) who regard EU withdrawal as either economic folly or the way to social pariah status, or both.

Vince Cable almost certainly isn’t going to be Prime Minister, and – ego aside – he knows that is so. But as Eddie the Eagle proved, you don’t have to reach the pinnacle to nonetheless gain respect or a following; or to be remembered for longer than those who got to the top.