Surprise, surprise. Now it’s all the fault of the media.

The methods of The Daily Telegraph have, according to the Business Secretary, Vince Cable, undermined the relationship between MPs and their constituents.

He’s clearly right. By getting Mr Cable to say one thing to people he thought were his constituents while peddling another line in public it is bound to undermine trust to a degree. It is obviously regrettable that any British journalist would stoop so low as to subject a minister of the crown to water-boarding until he blurted out a stream of ego-driven preening, now deeply regretted.

The Telegraph sent along two female journalists posing as mothers concerned about losing their child benefit. Mr Cable chose to do what blokes do in front of women – show off. He’s not the first man to have fallen for that old trick and he won’t be the last. His whinging, under the circumstances is off the scale of pathetic. His argument is also rubbish.

One of the first rules of politics that anyone sensible learns is that it is unwise to say things to anyone outside your closest confidents that you wouldn’t want repeated in public. And, just in case anyone should doubt it, the conversations a politician has at their surgery are just as public as any other unless they relate to the personal circumstances of the individual. So in other words the detail of an individual constituent’s problems claiming benefits are a confidential matter, the MP’s expression of a view on the benefits system is not. It is hard to see what Mr Cable’s view on the BskyB merger could relate to anyone’s personal circumstances. He had no business expressing a view of any kind.

So not for the first time Mr Cable is talking out of one of his sockets. But while he may have exposed himself as a self-indulgent egoist with questionable judgement, he is certainly not a fool. I suspect he knows very well he is talking tripe and is merely trying to muddy the waters.

Mr Cable could do well to keep quiet. He is by any standards lucky to remain in government – a view shared by many Conservative commentators. Unlike the personal failings that have led to the majority of ministerial resignations in the past decade, Mr Cable’s frothing goes to the core of his departmental responsibility. It is without doubt a sacking matter. That he has, for now at least, survived raises obvious and serious questions about the authority of the Prime Minister within the coalition.

It is hard to see how any Prime Minister would find it acceptable to continue with a cabinet minister so publicly courting conflict. The puffed up notions of Mr Cable’s claims to be able to ‘nuke’ the government may be preening tosh – there is an overflowing metaphorical graveyard of former cabinet ministers who listened to their egos and believed their resignation would bring down the Government – but it is, combined with downright incompetence, enough to send any PM over the edge.

It was the prefect opportunity to get rid of a pain in the neck. The fact that he has been removed from responsibility for the BSkyB merger demonstrates that the Prime Minister has limited power. Is it possible for a Liberal Democrat minister to be sacked without the agreement of Nick Clegg? Of course it could be that Mr Cameron had concluded that to keep Vince Cable in the tent was the least worst option or he could have looked at the alternatives from the Liberal Democrat junior ranks and concluded they were too horrible to contemplate. Either way it is a significant misjudgement that in the long term will further undermine the workings of the Government.

Happy holidays.