A welcome schism has opened up in the coalition; welcome to City law firms, at any rate. Vince Cable, whose increasingly Eeyore-like deportment has not gone unnoticed among political scribes, has hit out at proposed limits on non-EU highly skilled migration. In a Financial Times interview, he claimed that companies were relocating jobs overseas in response to punitive caps that left them unable to hire key staff.

Cable cited investment banking, engineering and pharmaceuticals as three of the sectors adversely affected. But his comments chime with the Law Society’s misgivings about the limits, first aired in August and reiterated this week in a submission to the Home Office.

The proposals will threaten the UK’s position as a prominent legal centre, severely restricting law firms’ overseas work and their ability to employ international lawyers, Chancery Lane has warned. The UK risks losing large volumes of legal transactional work to other jurisdictions, it added.

It will be fascinating to see how this plays out. The cap was a manifesto pledge by David Cameron and popular with the electorate – immigration being an issue which has leverage with the swing voter.

However, the last thing the government wants to do is inhibit the ability of British business (and particularly the City) to claw its way out of recession. Greater flexibility would seem to be called for – if only to keep the peace at Cabinet.