There is something wonderfully Scottish about the way in which Alistair Darling made his move against Gordon Brown. Rather than stage a dramatic ambush in the Commons, as Geoffrey Howe did to Margaret Thatcher, the Chancellor invited a newspaper interviewer to spend two days with him at his family home in the Outer Hebrides. From the safety of his croft, he went on to deliver a series of extraordinary observations which not only reverberated around Westminster, but moved financial markets and changed the political game.
For the record, the Chancellor revealed that he regards the economic conditions facing Britain as ‘arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years’. (He later corrected himself: he meant 70 years.) The Treasury, he disclosed, was caught utterly unawares by the credit crunch and he learnt about it only from a newspaper he bought in Majorca. He is also being intrigued against. ‘There’s lots of people who’d like to do my job,’ he said.
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