Venture capitalist Beecroft launched his verbal attack against Dr Cable in today’s Telegraph, after Cable labelled his proposals to make it easier to fire workers as “nonsense”.

Mr Beecroft told the newspaper:  "I think he is a socialist who found a home in the Lib Dems, so he's one of the Left.

"I think people find it very odd that he's in charge of business and yet appears to do very little to support business."

He went on to blame the Liberal Democrats for blocking his plans, adding that Nick Clegg always threatens “to go nuclear and dissolve the whole thing if he doesn't get his way with this, that and the other".

Adam Beecroft’s condemnation extended to the Treasury, who he claims are failing to push growth in the right ways, adding that if his proposals were taken on board, the UK would see further growth of 5%.

His study into business, which was launched by David Cameron’s drive to remove red tape from industry, was published on Monday.

It proposed that companies should be less concerned about firing under-performing employees, saying that a mandatory 90-day consultation period when a company is considering redundancy programmes should be removed.

However Vince Cable said that "we need to get away from an economy based on a short-term, take-what-you-can, fire-at-will culture."