VINCE Cable has paved the way for the Liberal Democrats to form a 'rainbow coalition' Government with Labour and the SNP after admitting his party would be 'perfectly happy' to work with the Nationalists.
The Business Secretary, who could stand for the Lib Dems leadership if Nick Clegg quits or loses his seat at May's General Election, said during a visit to Edinburgh that a broad centre-left alliance was "certainly possible" in the event of another hung parliament. Mr Cable added: "I wouldn't rule it out".
Mr Clegg, the Deputy Prime Minister, recently appeared to dismiss a potential deal with the nationalists, saying he would find it very difficult to imagine the circumstances in which he would enter into a coalition with the SNP.
However, Mr Cable said that the Liberal Democrats would enter any post-election negotiations in an "open-minded way".
Polls have shown that the SNP is enjoying unprecedented support and may well hold the balance of power at Westminster, with neither Labour or the Conservatives likely to win an overall majority.
YouGov founder and polling expert Peter Kellner has predicted that a tripartite coalition of Labour, the SNP and Liberal Democrats would have the best chance of forming a working administration after May 7.
It lends weight to Mr Cable's claim that a three-party deal is possible.
"There is probably going to be an issue in the next parliament of minority Government," Mr Cable said. "When that happens there are all kinds of different possibilities from coalition, support outside coalition, and I think any sensible party has to be willing to look at all those possibilities in an open minded way because what the country will need is stability.
"We're perfectly happy to work with the SNP. There's no taboo on the SNP.
"Probably the party we had the greatest degree of difference from were the Tories but given the reality of the situation in 2010, the need for a stable Government, the extreme nature of the economic crisis, we worked together in a businesslike way. We would approach the SNP in exactly the same way."
When asked whether there was the chance of a 'rainbow' coalition with the nationalists and Labour, Mr Cable replied: "It's possible. We're trying to be equidistant between the parties and leave the public to decide which direction they go. But certainly that kind of arrangement would be possible. I certainly wouldn't rule it out."
Mr Cable admitted that LibDem Chief Secretary to the Treasury Danny Alexander faced an "uphill struggle" to hold on to his Inverness, Nairn, Badenoch & Strathspey seat.
A constituency poll puts him well behind the SNP, but Mr Cable said he remained confident that voters would return him to Westminster.
He said that he believed Mr Clegg would "almost certainly" hold on to Sheffield Hallam and did not rule out running for the Liberal Democrat leadership if he quit or lost his seat.
However, the London MP and former Glasgow councillor attacked First Minister Nicola Sturgeon's economic plans to offer an alternative to austerity.
He distanced himself from Chancellor George Osborne by saying he did not back cuts for ideological reasons, he insisted that Governments had a duty to run public finances "prudently" and warned the SNP that it should prepare to make tough decisions, if it finds itself with power in London.
He added that he believed the party that won the largest number of overall seats in May would have a "basic legitimacy", after the First Minister suggested that it was "not written in tablets of stone" that the leader with the most MPs would go on to form the Government.
"I do get a sense sometimes that the Scottish Government probably hasn't hauled on board the fact that there is a significant fiscal problem that we have to deal with," he said.
"There are basic facts of life whether it's at Scottish Government level or UK Government level that you've got to manage your budget in a responsible way and you can't just run perpetually large deficits.
"Faced with the reality of Government as we were, at a UK level five years ago, then you have to look at things in a different way and you have to make tough decisions. I think if they [the SNP] did find themselves in Government they would find themselves making some very difficult decisions."
SNP Westminster Leader Angus Robertson MP said that the Liberal Democrats would "answer to the electorate" at the General Election after playing their part in inflicting "devastating cuts" as part of a coalition with the Tories.
A Labour spokesman said: "This election is about evicting David Cameron from Downing St and only the Labour Party can do that. A vote for any other party makes it get more likely that the Tories will be the biggest party, and David Cameron will get into government through the back door."
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