Alistair Darling has told tomorrow’s FT that he won’t be seeking re-election and is off at the ‘relatively young’ age of 60 to try something new. He backs the also-departing Jim Murphy as leader of Scottish Labour but will do so as a member of the public. Darling’s decision doesn’t surprise me: there were rumours that he was thinking this way ahead of the last election.
He is perhaps the only finance minister in Europe serving at the time of the crash to have come out of it with his reputation enhanced (which is why he has other career options to think about). He was a unifying figure, and therefore Labour’s only hope to lead the Better Together campaign. But I suspect that experience exposed him to as much Labour infighting as a sane man would be willing to take in one lifetime.
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