A Measure of Labour’s Problem

David Miliband’s resignation as an MP to run a charity in New York is a loss to the Labour Party. More than that, though, it tells us what a state Labour is in.
There has recently been speculation about the possibility of Alistair Darling replacing Ed Balls as shadow chancellor – a change on which Darling [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 26 March 2013 at 9:40 pm

Alistair Darling’s Question Time

Another curious session of Prime Minister’s Questions. With the looming sense that something important was happening somewhere else, Conservative backbenchers asked prepared questions about public-sector pensions, Ed Miliband asked … – I’ll get back to you – and Balls of the Remove made flatlining gestures throughout, which finally made the new-ish head teacher cross.
No Tories [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 2 November 2011 at 2:41 pm

Ed Balls: “Gordon Brown didn’t tell me what he was doing”

Ed Balls was on BBC Radio 4 The World At One, and Martha Kearney asked him about the extracts from Alistair Darling’s memoir:
MK: We are hearing about Alistair Darling’s memoirs, claims that you ran a shadow Treasury operation, even plotted to get his job?
EB: Well look I was really proud to be the Secretary of [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 1 September 2011 at 4:21 pm

What does “too far, too fast” mean?

What is the difference between Labour’s plan to cut the deficit and the Coalition plan?
Two nuggets prompted this. One was George Osborne’s assertion that the Labour plan set out by Alistair Darling before the election was for spending cuts only £2bn smaller than the £16bn he was proposing for this fiscal year, 2011-12.
The other was [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Tuesday, 29 March 2011 at 2:03 pm

Alan Johnson has left the building

So then, not quite a year in office and not quite 40 years of age and George Osborne has already seen off two Labour shadow chancellors – Alistair Darling and Alan Johnson.

By Sean O'Grady | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 20 January 2011 at 4:56 pm

“Sometimes it’s hard to tell”

Lovely story in yesterday’s Notebook column by Sue Cameron in the Financial Times…

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Thursday, 25 November 2010 at 11:51 am

History lessons and banking reform

If we are to learn the lessons of history it is not enough to simply look at the crises that did happen, but those that didn’t too.

By Ben Chu | Eagle Eye | Wednesday, 16 June 2010 at 1:41 pm

Darling’s Revenge

Alex Barker and George Parker in the Financial Times report a fine case of a taste of one’s own medicine:
Alistair Darling hid “good news” on the deficit from Gordon Brown until the day before his final Budget, just weeks ahead of the election.
A late revision of the estimate of the deficit cut it from £170bn [...]

By John Rentoul | Eagle Eye | Saturday, 12 June 2010 at 1:55 pm

Bring on the bond vigilantes

The thing about bond vigilantes is that they hate high-spending left-inclined governments. Right? Well, apparently not.

Jim Leaviss of M&G Investments who blogs at Bond Vigilantes has a very good post in praise of Alistair Darling.

By Ben Chu | Eagle Eye | Monday, 7 June 2010 at 6:08 pm

Budget cuts – short term agreement, long term division

I oughtn't admit this, but in some ways the election fills me with dread. The European Commission are the latest body to call on Alistair Darling to be "more ambitious" in cutting the budget deficit, but there is no chance that any of the main parties will come up with such plans before election day. [...]

By Sean O'Grady | Eagle Eye, Econoblog | Tuesday, 16 March 2010 at 1:25 pm