Alistair Darling dies aged 70: How he had the most secure pair of palms
- The ex-Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling has died aged 70 after most cancers battle
In 1984, two years after Alistair Darling had been elected to Lothian Regional Council at 29, Labour chief Neil Kinnock went to Edinburgh to learn the riot act to a council that had been dubbed ‘loony Left’ as a result of it was charging illegally excessive charges.
As Darling was seen as one of many ringleaders of the revolt, Kinnock stabbed his finger at him and bellowed: ‘That bearded Trot must not ever grow to be an MP!’
Years later, the person affectionately nicknamed ‘Red Ally’ – who died on Thursday aged 70 – insisted that it was a case of mistaken id and Kinnock had been pointing at another person.
But Bob Thompson, a former chairman of the Labour Party, mentioned of the younger firebrand: ‘He was a Trotskyist and performed the half together with his bottom protruding of his denims and sandals on naked toes, lengthy hair and a beard.’
Ironically, Darling was a product of Scotland’s oldest boarding college, the £40,000-a-year Loretto, whose motto is Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna: ‘You had been born with abilities, develop them.’
At the tip of 1985, he did simply that. With his straggly beard neatly trimmed, the previous solicitor and barrister, who first acquired concerned in Labour politics whereas learning legislation at Aberdeen University, gained the choice battle to run for Labour in Edinburgh Central on the 1987 General Election and captured the seat from the Tories.
Darling was a product of Scotland’s oldest boarding college, the £40,000-a-year Loretto, whose motto is Spartam nactus es, hanc exorna: ‘You had been born with abilities, develop them’
George Osborne and former Chancellor Alistair Darling go to the Hitachi Rail Europe plant in June 2016
Alistair Darling as a Labour councillor for Haymarket and Tollcross. Left Val Woodward and proper Ian Newton pictured in 1982
When Tony Blair , the younger Shadow Employment Secretary, got here to a Burns Night supper in Darling’s constituency in 1991 and spoke for 20 minutes with out mentioning Scottish poet Robert Burns, Darling might solely look on in rapt admiration
In Parliament, he struck up an instantaneous friendship with fellow Scottish MP Gordon Brown. But when Tony Blair, the younger Shadow Employment Secretary, got here to a Burns Night supper in Darling’s constituency in 1991 and spoke for 20 minutes with out mentioning Scottish poet Robert Burns, Darling might solely look on in rapt admiration.
From that day forwards he was a cheerleader for Blair, Brown’s nice rival, who went on to take the get together management in 1994.
Darling, who shaved off his beard shortly earlier than the 1997 Blairite landslide, was a popular and revered MP, with mates on each side of the political divide.
A shrewd operator, he had an uncanny potential to climate crises, with the consequence that ‘Teflon Darling’ was certainly one of solely three ministers to serve within the Cabinets of each Blair and Brown from 1997 by to 2010.
Clever and collegiate, he at all times exuded an air of calm and had a dry sense of humour, qualities that served him properly as he climbed the greasy pole: first Chief Secretary to the Treasury, then Work and Pensions Secretary, Transport Secretary, Scottish Secretary and Trade and Industry Secretary.
But it was as Chancellor between 2007 and 2010 that Darling solid a global repute, as he and Blair’s successor as Prime Minister, Gordon Brown, devised a bundle to save lots of the banks throughout the monetary disaster of 2008.On Darling’s watch it turned evident that British banks had taken on billions of kilos value of ‘poisonous’ loans on the American property market
Lord Darling hugged his spouse Maggie exterior 11 Downing Street as he ready to current what can be his final Budget as Chancellor in March 2010
Ex-Labour Chancellor Alistair Darling, pictured in October final 12 months, has died aged 70 after a brief spell in an Edinburgh hospital being handled for most cancers
Lord Darling, pictured on the Labour Party convention in Blackpool in 1998, entered ministerial workplace instantly after New Labour’s landslide basic election win in 1997
He and Gordon Brown didn’t at all times have the best relationship as Chancellor and PM, with Lord Darling as soon as revealing how Mr Brown’s No10 staff had unleased the ‘forces of hell’ on him
In 2008, Darling warned that Britain was on the point of its worst financial disaster for 60 years, a doom-laden prediction that triggered certainly one of Gordon Brown’s more and more frequent volcanic rages (Pictured in 2014)
Lord Darling served as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 2007 and 2010, throughout which period he helped lead Britain by the chaos of the worldwide credit score crunch
The first signal that there may be bother forward got here in 2007 when there was a run on the previous constructing society Northern Rock, which pressured Darling to present it £20 billion in ensures. When this did not cease the rot, he nationalised it.
In 2008, Darling warned that Britain was on the point of its worst financial disaster for 60 years, a doom-laden prediction that triggered certainly one of Gordon Brown’s more and more frequent volcanic rages.
Darling later remarked that the ‘forces of hell’ had been unleashed on him and his loyal second spouse Margaret, a former journalist identified affectionately referred to as ‘Wee Maggie’, couldn’t comprise her fury.
She raged at one buddy: ‘The f***ing c***s try to sew up Alistair! The c***s! I can not consider they’re such c***s!’
Darling was proved proper later that 12 months when the US funding financial institution Lehman Brothers collapsed and he needed to inject tens of billions extra into the banking sector.
He later claimed that, previous to the bail-out, Britain got here inside two hours of cashpoints operating out of cash and that the nation might need ‘come inside hours of the breakdown of legislation and order’.
But he steered the nation by the disaster prompting his admirers to comment that the person with probably the most placing pair of eyebrows in Westminster additionally had the most secure pair of palms.
Towards the tip of 2009, his relationship with Brown – who was attempting to run the Treasury from No 10 – had completely disintegrated.
But Darling refused to budge and Brown was solely prevented from sacking his former buddy and changing him together with his confidant Ed Balls by a sequence of Blairite resignations from the Cabinet which put his personal survival in danger.
After Labour’s defeat in 2010, Darling returned to the backbenches and have become a outstanding determine within the Scottish independence debate as chairman of ‘Better Together’, which was fashioned to defend the Union.
In 2015, Darling joined the board of the blue-chip service provider financial institution Morgan Stanley, a far cry from his days distributing Marxist leaflets at Edinburgh railway stations.
He additionally turned a member of the House of Lords as Baron Darling of Roulanish however retired in 2020, citing the space from his residence in Edinburgh. He wished to spend extra time together with his spouse Maggie with whom he has two youngsters Calum and Anna.
As the tributes poured in final night time, one former Tory Cabinet minister advised me: ‘Alistair Darling was one of many nicest males in Parliament He can be sorely missed.’ He actually will.
