HITTING ROCK BOTTOM
In failing to find a speedy solution to the Northern Rock crisis, Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown could land taxpayers with a huge bill, writes Matthew Lynn
Whatever other epitaphs are eventually delivered on the Premiership of Gordon Brown, and on the Chancellorship of Alistair Darling, “decisive” is not likely to be among them. We are now into the third month since the crisis at Northern Rock erupted, causing the first run on a bank in a developed country in living memory and the greatest financial crisis in Britain since the fringe banking collapse of the early 1970s. Yet how much closer are we to a solution? Hardly so much as a step.
Between them, Brown and Darling have failed to provide the leadership the situation demands. They have not come up with a plan. They have failed to protect the reputation of the City, on which the prosperity of the whole economy crucially depends. Instead, they have fluffed around, while the failed bank sinks ever further into a financial swamp.
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