Darling throws one hell of a spanner into No.10's election works

Working majority

To unleash something, it must be on a leash in the first place, and if something is on a leash, somebody must be holding the other end.

michael m

What we want is Brown to be interviewed by Paxman- he won't of course because he knows he will be asked probing and forensic questions. We all should have known that he is going to be portrayed as a saint between now and the election with the help of cronnies at GMTV and Morgan.

Bert

I wonder how the BBC will manipulate this into an anti Tory story

Vulture

Shame that Darling is a Howe rather than a Heseltine.

He's such an old dead sheep. He should have got on the fone to Bruin and said - "Sack Whelan and McBride within an hour or I'll be over the bulletins telling the country what an arse you are". Bruin would have had to cave in. As it is Whelan is stll in place spreading his poison.

Instead we get this winkin, blinkin, half-hearted half-admission. What's the betting the poor sap will be on the teatime bulletins saying it ain't true and he and Bruin are the bestest of buds? Pathetic.

bernerlap

Vulture - remember the dead sheep bit back with a resignation speech.
I just hope the Darling Randall interview does for the odious Brown what Howe's speech did for the rather wonderful Mrs T.

davidke

Cameron should leave all this alone. It may play as well for Labour as for the Tories. Cameron should be asking policy questions. By the way, Darling is just preparing the ground for the IMF job he will get after the election. He's making sure Brown won't be the one who gets it.

Michael Booth

Idea for next Tory poster:

picture of Brown Balls and Harman with caption
"Forces of Hell" and attributed to the Chancellor.

Priceless...

oldtimer

@Bert asks:
"I wonder how the BBC will manipulate this into an anti Tory story?"

They have already tried on the 10pm news last night. After a brief verbal report they showed just the clip where he refers to the Tories - as if to imply they were the ones responsible, not McBride or Whelan who were name checked in the Randall/Darling interview.

welease woger

The next person to interview Brown should dredge up that old joke used against Frank Sinatra:

"Make yourself at home Prime Minister, why don't you hit someone".

Mike Brighton

I don't get Darling. At one point he looked like he was his own man fighting against Brown and then he produced that laughable pre-Budget report that unravelled in about 2 minutes.
Now he's fighting Brown again and putting t about that he's defending the budget.
Either he gets onside with Brown n' Balls and takes it like a man or he grows a pair and resigns.

oldtimer

A further observation. Is this the election that no one wants to win?

Darling is better placed than anyone else to know about the oceans of red ink flooding the national accounts. How better to achieve this aim than to reignite the bullying/splits/rivalries stories, screw Brown and Balls and make it easier for the Tories to win after their recent wobbles?

As for Brown`s denials of his involvement on GMTV this am - talk is cheap...
...and unconvincing. Just like the promise of the referendum on the Lisbon treaty, which was not honoured, or the "guarantees" the electorate will be serenaded with in the coming election campaign.

mitcheltj

michael m In my view,Jeremy Paxman is a poseur, who appears to think that every interview is intended to show himself in the best possible light; I simply dont understand why he has such a high reputation.

If you want a tough, forensic interviewer, hire Andrew Neil, who routinely skewers evasive politicians and chancers every day on the Politics Show. His interview with the Head of the Meteorological Office trying to explain why they got their weather forecast so wrong is a classic.

TrevorsDen

Darling tried to quickly add in 'the tories as well'. Don't forget the 'as well'.

But the tories were duty bound to attack the chancellors disclosure - it was evidence of gross mismanegement of the economy.

The implication was clear - he was being attacked by his own side.

Brown is having to deny a lot lately.

richardj

Smells to me as another attempt to get rid of the election liability of the unelected one.

toni

Trouble with Labour is they do piddling undermining, when they should learn from Tories how to do 'in your face chopping off at the knees'.
My thoughts keep drifting back to Maggie Thatcher, Nigel Lawson and Alan Walters....

DavoMax

Micheal m - Paxman is woeful interviewer. He is lazy, under-prepared and has no idea how to use charm to get interviewees to answer the question. Jeff Randall clearly does.

Paxman is one trick pony who simply uses that same tired approach time, after time, after time. And we have no choice but to pay for him.

anne allan

Darling had been waiting for this moment ever since his predictions were rubbished in the autumn of 2008.
The quiet, supposedly biddable, ones are always the most lethal.
It was Geoffrey Howe's speech that did for Margaret Thatcher; Tarzan's posturing merely confirmed most people's opinion that he was a chancer.
The Tory front bench should leave this alone. It will be seen as opportunistic bullying.

Tiberius

Quite so, TrevorsDen, and I find it laughable that the reports so far seem to be angling that it was wrong of the Tories to attack Darling!

Any Colour but Brown

"Mike Brighton
I don't get Darling. At one point he looked like he was his own man fighting against Brown and then he produced that laughable pre-Budget report that unravelled in about 2 minutes.
Now he's fighting Brown again and putting t about that he's defending the budget.
Either he gets onside with Brown n' Balls and takes it like a man or he grows a pair and resigns."

Easy. As long as he's Chancellor, he can destroy Brown. Perhaps the PBR was written by Brown and his cohorts and foisted onto Darling. He had to swallow it to stay in No 11. Once he's out of the job, the whirling dervishes in the bunker will turn it into "sour grapes", no evidence, just allegations, etc..

Darling is going to be the only member of this mis-administration to leave with any dignity.

The MSM should take this revelation as the green light to tell what they know.

G Thomas

Philip Webster of The Times, who reported that Darling was about to be sacked following the 60 year recession comment in Sep 2008 wrote this morning that 'Without naming names, I can say that I spoke to three sources who suggested that Mr Darling's job prospects were not secure.'
Assuming Whelan and McBride were the first two, one wonders who else might have been angling for a change in the Chancellorship.

Verity

Y'all are obsessing about the number and quality of fleas on a dog. The governance of Britain is still a dog.

Kennybhoy

Verity!

Any chance of you returning to live in Britain anytime soon?

Ed

Darling knows how much worse the books are than they have ever admitted and wants to lose the election so that the Tories will be dumped with the mess.

If they do get in the Tories should call in the IMF immediately and thus dump all the blame on Brown where it is due and thus not be responsible for the essential undoing of the Nu Labour client state.

Hugo van Randwyck

I believe people are missing what is going on. In the run up to the last election, £ billions of tax credits payments were 'mistakenly' overpaid to people. Now a £170 billion budget deficit is being used to get re-elected, instead of tax increases/spending cuts.
What part of 'vote buying' do the media not understand? This is third world behaviour by politicians, and the media has a lot of opportunities to highlight this.
Also, as long as the budget deficit is larger than economic growth, then there is no 'recovery', the economy is still going backwards financially.
A YouGov poll asked people which they had heard of:
EFTA 37%
EU 95%
EFTA = European Free Trade Association. www.efta.int
Remember how the economy recovered when Britain unlinked itself from the EU in the early '90s. EFTA could help.

Ghengis

I am not sure that the cabinet secretary normally briefs HM of the procedures in the case of a hung parliament, but he is reported as having done so. In as much that GB would be prevented from undertaking any measures beyond those necessary from day to day if he were to remain in office, it would appear from the polls that this is what the electorate seek.

Graham Clark

Yes, I really do beleive a tad more what Alistair Darling says than either Pa Broone or any of his Spinmeisters, or supporters tell us. Only the daft, naive and Labour Faithful will still believe that all is 'Tickety Boo', not only between Brown and Darling, but Brown and certain other elements of the Parliamenty Labour Party. So, all is not well down at T'Mill!!

Pa Broone could be seen standing outside Number Ten smoking spliffs and drinking vast quantities of 'Special Brew' out of cans. It would still be believed by the daft, naive and Party Faithful to be a 'Tory Plot' to 'Smear the Great Dear Leader!' (all alleged of course)

John David Barnett

Vulture

Fone!! LOL!

Bunnykins

@Hugo van Randwyck:What part of 'vote buying' do the media not understand? This is third world behaviour by politicians, and the media has a lot of opportunities to highlight this.
What part of Britain hurtling towards the third world don't you understand??