He has written a stinging critque of Branson, and the Brown-backed bid for Northern Rock. So hard are his punches that Branson was compelled to defend himself - and that is the part that makes the frontpage.
Hopefully thousands of Mail readers will have turned to page 25 for the Vince Cable article.
They will find a cogent explanation of how much is involved and what is wrong with Brown's approach:
To put these mind-numbing figures in context, the sums are almost twice the amount spent annually on the whole of our national defence.
How do we now best safeguard taxpayers' money? The Government has, unwittingly, nationalised the liabilities and the risks.
The commonsense solution is for the Government to take over the bank, install professional managers and keep it until market conditions are improved when it can be sold, probably at a profit to the taxpayer, after bidding from serious buyers.
Gordon Brown is, however, clearly frightened of being accused of 'nationalisation' and of the practical political problems of taking direct responsibility for redundancies and mortgage arrears.
He is therefore desperate to find a private buyer now, even though the Government's negotiating position is very weak and market conditions are so bad that no private buyer can raise money to repay the Government loans.
Undeterred, the Government has offered guarantees to underwrite any private borrowing from the markets. In this bizarre Alice In Wonderland world, the Government has solemnly undertaken to repay the Government.
The taxpayer guarantees the taxpayers.
But Britain's best-loved businessman also takes a some big hits:
"There are, however, more serious, public-interest, grounds for worrying about
the Branson bid.
He will be acquiring a potentially valuable asset for a tiny offering of his own money. The consortium will put in £500million of new equity from Branson's Virgin, a hedge fund called Tosca and a billionaire American, Wilbur Ross, with a fearsome reputation for asset-stripping. It would raise another £500million from a share offer.
And Virgin Money would be put into the package, worth £250million in theory but valued in the City at much less.
Neither Sir Richard nor his partners come from the Mother Teresa school of business management. They are in this for what they can get out of it. And from day one, Sir Richard will be able to extract fees of around £10million a year for use of the Virgin brand name.
If they perform miracles, and if the taxpayer shares in the proceeds, does that matter? Perhaps the Government will be offered a 10 per cent share of any profits (less attractive when we consider that it is currently taking most of the risks).
And, of course, the bank will pay corporation tax on whatever money it makes.
But that's not the point. Although Sir Richard insists he pays tax here on his UK earnings, Virgin Holdings is registered in Switzerland, not Britain. And are the rest of Sir Richard's consortium colleagues registered for tax purposes in the United
Kingdom?"
Getting all of this into a Tory paper that loves Gordon Brown is a bit of coup. Well done, Vince!
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