When was alistair darling chancellor

Perhaps in the face of pressure to do otherwise by the "forces of hell", he has sensibly chosen to do the latter. Tax and spending. This article is more than 11 years old. Photograph: David Levene. Larry Elliott , economics editor. However, after Darling used his support within the party to pressure Brown, any such plan was shelved. The couple have two children. Swipe to read more. Author: Politics. What is Alistair Darling doing now?

For five years he trashed our economic record, which let him paint Labour as the party of tax and spend. Yet in his own budget he announced that he would spend more, borrow more, and tax more still. Where were our arguments to counter the fallacies? We stopped recession becoming depression following the global banking crash. The economy was growing in We let our opposition get away with it. That failure on our part hobbled us right up to polling day.

It was that essential truth that Gordon Brown and Tony Blair grasped in the s and which provided a sound platform to campaign for a fairer and more just society. It seems to me that we have three choices. We could collectively go out to lunch, as we did in the s. We left the field to Margaret Thatcher, and the Tories enjoyed power for 18 years. Safety first is not going to work. We have no right to exist: that has to be earned. We must rediscover our self-confidence and self-belief. From to , Darling also served as Secretary of State for Scotland.

He took over the office in very difficult times for both the Labour Party and the British economy. In , he published his memoirs of the time he was Chancellor of the Exchequer titled Back from the Brink: 1, Days at Number