Alistair Darling’s suggestion that income tax might be devolved (entirely!) to Scotland as part of a new post-referendum “settlement” was, understandably, the headline part of his Scotland on Sunday interview at the weekend. But his views on the Greek crisis were even more candid:
His assessment of the Greek crisis is astonishingly frank. “The policy they [European leaders] are pursuing towards Greece is sheer lunacy. Nobody actually believes it will work privately, if you speak to people.” Even if everything worked, he notes that Greece would still have debts worth 120 per cent of its national income. “It will still leave the country so indebted and so crippled that it will never pay its way. Frankly, the solution is that it is going to default and the only question in my mind is does it do it in an orderly way, or does it do it in a disorderly way.” Of course the Greeks have fiddled their books and leaders such as Germany’s Angela Merkel have every right to be angry. “I understand all that, but I think to visit on a country like Greece frankly something that would have been worthy of the Treaty of Versailles is absolutely ludicrous. It just isn’t going to work. And the risk is, of course, that if something goes wrong in Greece, then it spreads around the rest of the Mediterranean and Ireland.”
He adds: “You have to say this country is bust, and rather like a bust company, what do you to sort it out? They are going to have to do that sooner or later. Every fix they have come up with has fallen apart and it has begun to fall apart more regularly now – it used to be several months before the next crisis, but it is now on a more regular basis. The policy of austerity alone is never going to sort out Europe’s problems. Europe’s growth has stalled.”
Emphasis added. No-one else seems to think the latest Greek deal will work either so muddling through and hoping Mr Micawber’s wisdom will prevail in Athens is just about the best anyone can do. But if, as Darling suggests, even the people backing this measure in public do not believe in it privately then, presumably, someone must be preparing an alternative? Except that admitting an alternative – however politically or economically toxic it might be – would hasten the demise of the latest deal so no-one can contemplate an alternative, far less prepare one. Right? So everyone must pretend a confidence they do not have and hope that nothing happens to call that bet since any call will reveal it to be a bluff.
Meanwhile, shares in Darling Inc have risen so much on the domestic market that I wonder how much more credible, strange as it may seem, Labour might be if he, not Ed Miliband, had succeeded Gordon Brown. That would have been tricky, given Darling’s own record in office, but he’s distanced himself from his former master quite successfully and, frankly, looks more like a potential Prime Minister than poor Mr Miliband. Of course, perhaps this is just another example of politicians seeming more impressive once they abandon their ambitions for high office.
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