December 1, 2023 - 7:00am
Alistair Darling, who died yesterday, was a rarity in modern politics. It seems funny to call this quiet modest man a “Lord” — he was always just Alistair in the years I knew him, from when he was a Lothian Regional Councillor in the 1980s, to when he sat on the red benches of the Lords from 2015-2020.
He was part of the DNA of the New Labour government as one of the few people who spent every year in Cabinet from 1997-2010, first as Chief Secretary, then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Transport Secretary, Scotland Secretary, Business Secretary, and ultimately Chancellor of the Exchequer.
For a period, he was both Secretary of State for Scotland and Secretary of State for Transport. I asked him what it was like combining two roles. He told me that he’d recently been in Edinburgh for the weekend where a woman approached him. She said “Can I ask you about the trains?” Quick as a flash, he had replied “Sorry. At the weekend, I’m the Secretary of State for Scotland”.
He was never a man for grandstanding on either traditional or social media. He was happy to let his achievements speak for themselves. In his career, he faced two political challenges that were truly existential.
The first was the Global Financial Crisis and the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland when he was told by Tom McKillop, Chairman of RBS that “we’re going to run out of money in the early afternoon.” Darling acted to bail out RBS by effectively nationalising it. This was probably the boldest embodiment of New Labour’s slogan “what matters is what works” — and it stopped a potentially catastrophic run on all the UK high street banks.
Darling may have been shocked by the call from RBS, but he had a clear-eyed view of the state of the economy before the collapse of Lehman Brothers and the Global Financial Crisis, saying that the economic situation for the country and the world was “arguably the worst they’ve been in 60 years”. He also noted that it would be “more profound and long-lasting than people thought.” For his candour, he was monstered by Gordon Brown’s briefing operation with a viciousness normally reserved for Blairites. Darling described the attacks as the “forces of hell” being unleashed, his wife Maggie Darling, who survives him, had a characteristically saltier description.
The second was the Scottish independence referendum which could have led to the break-up of Britain. Alistair led the ‘Better Together’ campaign with a quiet, calm, confidence that was a stark contrast to the charismatic campaigning of SNP Leader and First Minister Alex Salmond. But, with one line in the first head-to-head debate, Darling brought Salmond down to earth. Observing that all independent countries have their own flags, capitals, and currencies, Alistair said: “but you can’t tell us what currency we will have”. The jibe sank Salmond in the debate and came to symbolise the economic risk of separating Scotland from the UK — and it dogs the SNP to this day, which is the sign of a truly powerful political attack.
Ultimately, Alistair was that rare politician who was loved by his staff. That was because he listened carefully, weighed arguments and then acted. He’ll be missed for his humanity — far too rare in government ministers today. He’ll be missed for his humour. He’ll be missed.
Join the discussion
Join like minded readers that support our journalism by becoming a paid subscriber
To join the discussion in the comments, become a paid subscriber.
Join like minded readers that support our journalism, read unlimited articles and enjoy other subscriber-only benefits.
SubscribeWhen I was working as an industry representative, I had dealings with Alistair Darling as Business Secretary and again later when he led the Better Together Campaign. In my view he was a standout. Honest, principled, direct, well informed, to the point and not given to hyperbole. He is indeed the sort of politician we very much miss. I lament his passing.
I might well have disagreed with a lot of his ideas, but he always struck me to be a decent sort of bloke. One measure of this is that I can’t imagine him getting into difficulties as to whether some women can have a p***s, taking the knee, or pretending to like multiculturalism. The Labour Party have come a long way in a short time, haven’t they!
Darling was absolutely perfect to lead Better Together. In contrast to the swagger and rhetoric of Salmond and the Yes campaign he appeared quiet, sensible and in possession of hard facts. I think he appealed to the cautious and canny aspect of the Scottish nature which proved stronger than the romantic, ‘hope over fear’ instinct.
When he pinned Salmond down on the currency issue he exposed the intellectual void at the heart of the Yes campaign. Salmond had to splutter that currency just isn’t all that important which just seemed even more ridiculous when immediately followed by Darling’s quiet incredulity. They just hadn’t thought it through, and you felt that this was something you wouldn’t say about Darling.
He seemed to embody the precise image of the UK being presented by Better Together; calm, safe, sensible, decent, grounded in reality, if slightly boring and flawed. In doing so he undermined the wishful thinking of Yes, a living rebuke to flashy promises and high idealism.
I had the good fortune to meet and briefly talk to him at a business event in 2014, when the Better Together campaign was getting going. He was clearly highly intelligent, and a very competent Chancellor in a crisis. Just as important, he was gentleman, and a patriot to his fingertips. I do not think he would lobby for China one week, and then become Foreign Secretary the next week. He was of a type which doesn’t seem to be attracted into public life, or certainly politics, any more. And while I have no objection to Shane McGowan, it seems absurd for Unherd to have a full article to mark his death, but just a short Post on Alistair Darling.
Amongst modern politicians, certainly one of the better ones and arguably not to blame for the financial crisis of 2007 (he’d only just become Chancellor – I’ll let Gordon Brown take the credit for digging the hole in the first place).
However, checking the record, we shouldn’t forget that:
1) He changed the designation of his second home four time in 4 years to maximise his expenses claims and minimise taxes (probably while Chancellor).
2) It was Darling who tapered the income tax personal allowance above $100,00 – in other words, the “personal allowance” would no longer be universal. This created an effective 60% marginal tax rate which is still – absurdly – in place. I’d forgotten he did this and been assuming it was George Osborne.
It was on New Labour’s watch that we saw the economy tank in a near-global banking disaster. Whilst there may be an argument that Labour’s profligacy in office didn’t entirely cause the rain, there is no getting away from the fact that they had sold the nation’s umbrella by the time it hit.
Gordon Brown was given undue credit for “saving the global economy”, any plaudits and gratitude should really have been directed at Alistair Darling, who instead was blamed by Tories for causing the crash.
But if Darling was unfairly saddled with the blame that should have been Blair, Brown and Balls’, he somehow dodged the responsibility of austerity that became Cameron and Osborne’s burden to bear alone.
It was a strange sort of Austerity – usually referred in the Leftish Media as “Vicious Tory austerity” – by which they mean those merciless and savage cuts that saw public spending wantonly slashed from £759 billion in 2015 to a mere £842 billion a year pre-Covid.
According to all the promises from the pre-Corbyn Labour leadership, those who complain should perhaps be grateful we had Tory ‘Austerity’, rather than Labour’s – who promised to cut harder and deeper than the Conservatives.
What might we have expected to be different under a Labour Govt? In 2010 Alistair Darling announced – in the pages of the Guardian, yet memory-holed since – that “Labour’s planned cuts in public spending will be “deeper and tougher” than Margaret Thatcher’s in the 1980s”, …they promised “two parliaments of pain” to repair the black hole in the state’s finances.
The Institute for Fiscal Studies said hefty tax rises and Whitehall spending cuts of 25% were in prospect during the six-year squeeze lasting until 2017 that would follow the chancellor’s “treading water” budget yesterday.’
Not much had changed in Labour’s position by 2015: “A Labour government would deal with the deficit by cutting public spending by most Whitehall departments every year as part of a “tough and balanced” approach to restoring Britain’s economic fortunes, Ed Miliband will announce.”
Alistair Darling announced before the election a cumulative decline of 11.9% in departmental spending on public services over four years, a cut of £46bn in inflation-adjusted terms. Given that Overseas Aid and NHS funding were both ring-fenced that worked out to a 25% cut in spending across all other Whitehall departments.
So, although it goes against the narrative, Darling’s promised reductions would have amounted to more than Osborne cut.
When the Coalition and then Tory Govts took over, the country was in a parlous financial state. Drastic measures were needed if we were to avoid a complete financial collapse.
ALL PARTIES RECOGNISED THAT FACT.
Of course it is easy now to look back and say we could and possibly should have gone another way, but at the time ALL parties with a credible chance of getting into Govt were promising a similar future filled with painful cuts to services.
To deny that is simply dishonest. To pretend it was only the Tories that would have “inflicted” austerity on the country is also dishonest.
But, as ever, most Guardian-readers, civil servants and (more worryingly) floating voters, are comfortable when the narrative is framed that it is evil Tories, driven purely by malice and greed, who imposed “swingeing austerity” (???) on people with some sort of twisted, sadistic relish.
One has to wonder how Alistair Darling’s reputation for decency, probity and good judgement might now be being assessed by Obit Writers and in UK newsrooms had Labour squeaked a narrow victory in 2010.
Far from having ‘sold the umbrella’ prior to the 2008, the Labour administration had been the first government in British history to stick to their fiscal rules for more than a decade. National debt was hence exceptionally low as we entered 2008, allowing Labour to meet the global crisis with a robust Keynesian stimulus.
What?
They had several years of running surpluses and yet instead of investing in, or even insulating us from, the future, they levered up the economy to terrifying levels of debt obligation.
That’s not a partisan opinion it is a simple fact. I’d agree that debt has ballooned since but much of that is precisely the fallout from bailing out banks caused by that massive over-leverage.
The best way to look at it would be: Knowing what we know now what provisions would you have made in 2008 to protect the UK economy? None of those provisions were in place, instead we had gone on a massive borrow and spend spree
Not an unblemished record. Who has that. But in the way he conducted himself he did stand out.
And it makes one ponder – who in the Tory party and/or on the Right with influence more broadly currently has that persona and gravitas? It’s a struggle isn’t it to think of one anywhere near the heart of power and influence. They did once have them of course but the incoherence of Right Wing Populism has defenestrated their best.
One of the few frontline Labour MPs I could actually respect. I don’t wholly agree with the above analysis regarding the financial crisis, but the UK’s response was primarily Gordon Brown’s plan not that of Alistair Darling, so it would be unfair to criticise it here.
He was so obviously a decent man, and that’s not an image that most politicians are capable of maintaining for any length of time.
RIP.
When Alistair Darling was Chancellor of the Exchequer, then my mother, who was related to him only by marriage, maintained that my eyebrows would stay black when my hair had turned white. We may not now have long to find out. His idea of public stakes in the banks has proved remarkably long-lasting, even if too little has been made of it. At Wednesday’s Prime Minister’s Questions, Rishi Sunak was confronted by a Conservative MP, Sarah Dines, about branch closures in her constituency by a bank that was largely publicly owned. Quite. “Our goal is to make finance the servant, not the master, of the real economy,” said Darling (I never met him). We are still waiting.
Saint Andrew’s Day seemed apt. Like George Kerevan, Darling was part of the spectacularly successful IMG entryist operation in the Edinburgh Labour Party of the early 1980s. But unlike Kerevan, although he is now in Alba so things could be worse, Darling resisted to the last the dissolution of the British Labour Movement and of its achievements, right up to yesterday’s victory on the part of the RMT, pointedly an unaffiliated trade union led by a member of no political party. Under me, Unite would be like that. And if strikes did not work, then no one would bother trying to tell you that they did not work, nor would anyone be trying to ban them. A ban that the Labour Party would not repeal, having banned its MPs from standing on picket lines.
Darling did not effectively nationalise RBS. He effectively nationalised RBS’ losses, while allowing the banksters to continue ripping off the public.
Yes, you are entirely correct. The banks should have been nationalised but weren’t.
Seemed a decent bloke just met him a couple of times in blah, blah settings but from what I saw and how he went about things he seemed decent. And competent. A rare coupling of virtues these days.