Sketch: Vince Cable gets wrapped up in red tape "Red tape" is an issue about which the main parties simultaneously agree and disagree. All of them claim vociferously to be against it; you never hear a politician say, "In these difficult times, what this country is crying out for is more red tape - roll after roll of the stuff, tightening around each firm's throat like a snare around a rabbit's. Nothing does more to encourage growth than a spot of good, old-fashioned strangulation. Today the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills (BIS) presented its proposals to cut various workplace regulations, among them some to do with health and safety. Naturally, Labour reacted as if the Government had just decreed that all workers must wear socks made from asbestos, and that tax breaks were on offer to any firm that could maim two thirds of its workforce by Christmas. He'd better be careful, or those departments might sue him for compensation over the resultant burns. Then again, perhaps his radical new measures on health and safety will mean they won't be able to. ("Henceforth, employers will be legally entitled to hold the feet of all underperforming staff to a large, blazing fire. In addition, they may, where necessary, give those staff a kick up the backside. And even put a rocket under them.") It was a busy day for BIS. In the morning, the announcement about workplace red tape; in the afternoon, an Urgent Question in the Commons about the Government's "industrial strategy." I put that phrase in quotation marks because the session left me not much clearer about what that strategy is. This may in part be due to the rhetorical style of Vince Cable, the Business Secretary, who speaks with all the verve and flair of the public address system of a small suburban railway station. It may also be due to his soporific fondness for verbosity and jargon ("The second strand of the industrial strategy is to build on a collaborative strategic partnership with key sectors"). Dr Cable also has a taste for truisms. "We need a long-term commitment to world-class skills," he declared earnestly, as if anyone would argue the opposite. ("We desperately need fewer skills. And if workers do insist on having skills, they must be commonplace, outdated or otherwise undesirable skills, not world-class skills.") Still, one man seemed to think he knew what the statement was about. "That was a Labour statement, not a Coalition statement," fizzed Peter Bone, the Right-wing Tory backbencher who could sniff out Lefty wetness in a battle cry by Attila the Hun. It talked about state intervention and picking winners... Nothing about regulation and red tape... Dr Cable laughed unconvincingly. He was probably wishing he had some red tape to hand, so that he could stick it across Mr Bone's mouth.