Is Darling paving the way for some "humility" from Brown?

Bilboo Baggins

Nothing about the terrorist attack this morning then?

TPR

"... it is our collective responsibility" - I get the impression, he means as a nation, i.e. not simply the responsibility of the lawmakers. In other words, he looks to be trying to get us to adopt a collective guilt for our greedy ways of the past 15 years, wherein material wants ruled our lives at the cost of common sense and our finances.

Dr Blue

Will Brown blame "problems that started in America" when he speaks to Congress?

I guess that will go down ever so well.

wonderfulforhisage

There is an idiot on a bike obscuring the first paragraph. Some advertisement but it looks as if the thing will take several minutes to play.

Richard

You can bullshit some of the people some of the time but..

Seriously though, people are hurting, the stats coming out of the US and BRIC are time lagged and whilst the move to the Tories is politically soft with Cameron's honeymoon to be held in Bridlington (off season), they have to take responsibility for some of it - it's only common decency.

An 8 year old knows that.

Max Kaye

Darling, Balls and others in the sinking ship of NuLabour are just position themeselves as 'realistic' and 'reasonable' and distancing themselves from Brown's delusional intransigence.

They obviously hope to 'sail on' after this Jonah has been cast into the deep.

TrevorsDen

15 years - he is just taking the pi$$ the bar-steward.

Can he list Ken Clarkes errors? All regulation was stood on its head as soon as labour came to power.
If this is just a crude attempt to bring in 'Black Wednesday'? In fact coming out of the ERM is about the only correct financial thing done in the last 15 years. Going into the ERM was the policy of Kinnock Smith and Brown - which just proves the rule of never following an idea of Gordon Browns.

But more to the point when we did leave the ERM it left the position of the then Chancellor as untenable - where does admitting the cock-ups of the last 12 years leave Brown and Darling?

All this talk of apologies in the blogosphere are pointless - an admission of failure must mean resignations - otherwise why bother?

PS - according to Guido Brown is being given the 'grand press conference' brush off by Obama (he has to meet some boy scouts apparently). I am not sure this is enough to alleviate the curse.

Chuck Unsworth

Is Darling now proposing some sort of Regulatory Scale of Remuneration for all of us? Does he believe that Government should determine everyone's wages etc? I think he probably does.

You see, the problem for Darling is that he's going to have to consider the packages of benefits offered to MPs and their various kith and kin, too. Because after all, they are exactly the same as everyone else aren't they?

Oh! Are they not then?

As to 'regulatory model', yep, that's what it is - a model. It's certainly nothing like a working system - Q.E.D.

mac

Yes, the bunker is frantically massaging the 'narrative'.

The diversionary tactic of ministers to keep the Goodwin obloquy running over the past week hasn't succeeded in avoiding the elephant, the government's own lack of effective financial regulation for a decade, even if the MSM is curiously unwilling to go for the throat here.

Brown daren't blame America when he speaks in Washington. And concentrating fire on ruthless masters of the universe bankers invites the question 'well, why weren't they reined in?' can be answered conveniently in the States by a new Democrat Administration blaming the dastardly Bushites (carefully avoiding mention of Clinton's complicity, of course), but that story doesn't work for the ex-colossus of No 11 who was on watch boasting of his cleverness and prudence for so many years.

Sadly, whatever weasel words the Labour spinners are now using, I have no confidence that our supine, fellow-travelling MSM has the guts to properly expose this shower of incompetents. No sign of The Sun conjuring up a latter-day Kinnockian light bulb image to inform it's readership of Brown & co's culpability, is there? Now why is that?

fulcanelli

I'd be shocked if Brown ever publicly apologised for the mountain of errors he's made and inflicted upon this country over the last decade or so. He doesn't seem to have it in him to show such humility.

The other cockroaches in the cabinet are just positioning themselves for the aftermath scrum. Brown knows it's do or die for him, so why apologise now!

As for Obama, he'll fail soon enough. The guy lies through his teeth, makes outrageous promises, and yet the people and press still believe him. The Obama curtain will rise soon enough, to reveal nothing more than a trickster and phoney.

oldtimer

Is this a case of "When the cat is away the mice do play"?

I seem to recall that Darling`s prediction (last summer) of the worst economic outlook for 60 years was delivered from the relative safety of the Outer Hebrides.

mac

Bully for Mr Darling.

So we'll be seeing some appropriate "humility" and atoning reparation from Ms Smith, the Balls', the Speaker, Ms Spelman and assorted peers as their expressions of "collective responsibility", will we?

No? Thought not.

john miller

Darling is actually preparing Brown for humility by lying face down in it so Brown can walk on his back...

Patrickinken

Darling said, "The [regulatory] model of us saying to them [the banks] 'you say its ok to us and we will go along with it' has failed."

This is a wonderful confession of government/ regulatory failure and it should haunt Darling's predecessor. But surely it is too ridiculous to take at face value?

Carly

I like Darling, he is a genuine guy and is human unlike Brown. Were it not for the fact he is Scottish he could've been a possible contender for the leadership.