Vince Cable will today (Sat) launch a scathing attack on his Conservative Coalition Government colleagues.

The Business Secretary is to hit out at David Cameron's "ludicrous" immigration target and warning that the Tory plan to hold a referendum on membership of the European Union could leave the UK in "no man's land".

He will use his speech at the Liberal Democrats' spring conference to accuse the Tories of having a negative message on trade unions, benefits and multiculturalism, accusing them of an attack on "workers, shirkers and burqas".

Treasury Chief Secretary Danny Alexander will use his conference speech to claim that the prospect of a Conservative majority is "grim" and they would make further cuts that would hit the vulnerable, while Labour has an "unclear" vision and is in denial about the party's role in the financial crash.

Mr Cable, who has a history of using keynote speeches at Lib Dem conferences to attack his coalition colleagues, will tell the gathering in Liverpool: "The Tories have an ideological obsession with cutting back on state spending, however useful or productive, and relying on markets instead.

"But any illusions people may have had about rational and efficient markets were destroyed in the banking crisis. Left to themselves, markets often will generate speculative bubbles driven by short term greed or panic, and they primarily reward those who do not need rewards: the wealthiest 1%, the Tories' paymasters and mentors."

He will claim Labour "still clings to the idea that the decision over what is what is produced and prices charged should be made by ministers and civil servants sitting in Whitehall".

Both Labour and the Tories "pander to their core vote", he will claim.

But his main attack will be aimed at the Conservatives, claiming they have lurched to the right to counter the threat posed by Ukip with policies such as the ultimately failed attempt to reduce net migration to the "tens of thousands".

He will say: "The Tories have a strange, split personality which embraces, on the one hand, free market economics and, on the other, nationalism - or, at least, English nationalism."

XREF POLITICS LEAD PAGE 6