John Malone, America’s “cable cowboy”, is secretly pushing for a full-blown merger of Liberty Global and Vodafone, after the two telecoms giants opened talks about an asset-swap deal. It is understood that the US billionaire’s representatives have prepared detailed plans on how Liberty’s operations, such as Britain’s Virgin Media, could be combined with Vodafone’s European networks to create a new continental force in the mobile, broadband and pay-television markets.