Will dithering Darling get the chop?
Peter Hoskin 6:32pm
For much of his time as Chancellor, it's been hard not to feel sorry for Alistair Darling. He's been parachuted into what are rocky economic times, and has had to deal with - and often reverse - decisions made during Brown's Chancellorship.
The recent stamp duty fiasco seems different though. It was embarrassing enough that the idea of temporarily suspending stamp duty leaked from the Treasury in the first place (usually a sign of a minister not in control of his department). But the uncertain response of Treasury officials - and Darling himself - has only compounded the situation. How so? Well, potential house-buyers have held back from purchases until the stamp duty situation is resolved. Obviously this has damaged, rather than revitalised, the market.
The latest is that Darling has cooled on the idea of a stamp duty holiday. But, in the absence of an official announcement, the uncertainty remains, and Labour MPs are starting to voice their disgruntlement with the Chancellor.
Of course, that disgruntlement may be unfair - the indecision may have originated from No10. But I doubt that will prevent Brown's anger over the situation. The much-vaunted economic plan is now blemished from the outset. And - after the recent reshuffle speculation - our Chancellor's position is starting to look a little more precarious.
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David
August 10th, 2008 7:21pm Report this commentLike Darling actually has any degree of responsibility for anything involved in his brief. You know when a leader is in real trouble when he is contemplating sacking his most loyal puppet and yes-man.
Chuck Unsworth
August 10th, 2008 7:29pm Report this commentWell if Brown sacks his placeman who will be happy to be the next fall-guy? Who could Brown persuade to take on the task - and what guarantees would they extract from the odious Brown before accepting the position?
Only a fool would take it on. Let's see who that fool turns out to be.
Keith
August 10th, 2008 8:00pm Report this commentIf you can't take a joke, you shouldn't take the job.
Travis Bickle
August 10th, 2008 8:54pm Report this commentClearly somebody leaked what was going to be a major relaunch announcement by Brown, probably at conference.
Midas in reverse indeed.
Augustus
August 10th, 2008 9:39pm Report this commentYet another nail in the coffin of the ditherers of Downing Street.
John
August 10th, 2008 10:25pm Report this commentThis constant nonsensical "it's been hard not to feel sorry for McLiar", "it's been hard not to feel sorry for glove puppet" that we hear from hacks time and time again, is yet another demonstration that they live on some other planet. Nobody forced him to take this job. Nobody forced him to be a politician, and in particular, a member of this most corrupt government for 3 generations. He could have been a blameless train driver or stamp dealer. Instead, he chose to throw in his lot with this gang of crooks that's been destroying my country for 11 years now. He deserves all the anguish in the world.
BCS
August 10th, 2008 10:59pm Report this commentIs it possible that the stamp duty leaking has been orchestrated by Number 10 to provide a convincing excuse for scapegoating Darling in the reshuffle? Or is that a little cynical?
Verity
August 10th, 2008 11:32pm Report this commentJohn - I'm with you, my man!
No one forced Gordon Brown to fight his way, by hook or by crook, to be the most powerful person in the United Kingdom. No one forced him to scheme and lay about him, and sulk, and lie to the people of Britain in order to weaken our civil society and hand it over to yobs and primitive immigrants ... who the taxpayer has been forced at the point of a threat of imprisonment, to subsidise and not complain about(and remember when he, as Chancellor, effectively got that genuinely very clever young girl who had won a place at Oxbridge banned because she was too clever? She went on to get a place at an American Ivy League - subsidised by the university because she was so clever - if I'm not mistaken?. Any updates on her, by the way? She'll have a prestigious degree - that hasn't been devalued by the socialists - by now.)
Gordon Brown, Tony Blair and their promoter among the "working classes", John ("I feel sick; mebbe I shouldn't have had that second steak") Prescott.
Who the hell cares if "dithering Darling" gets the chop? They're all as destructive as one another.
PS where is that young Oxbridge rejectee now, one wonders.
mitch
August 11th, 2008 5:33am Report this commentThe mans a lawyer in the real world how much sympathy is he going to get eh?.
Would be funny if nobody would take the job.
Doug
August 11th, 2008 8:25am Report this commentIt would require someone with balls to take that job...how about yvette cooper?
John
August 11th, 2008 9:43am Report this commentPlease, Doug, I am trying to have my breakfast here.
Jim
August 11th, 2008 10:03am Report this commentExcept... the story didn't leak from the Treasury, it leaked from Number Ten. Darling has been left to pick up the pieces, not for the first time.
Ian C
August 11th, 2008 10:37am Report this commentTo sack the man he appointed to take over from himself, so soon, would be a blunder only Brown could commit.
Hecan't do it and it is more likely that AD will do a Geoffrey Howe at some point because he knows where the bodies are buried and has been busily fall across them for the past year.
Teledu
August 11th, 2008 3:27pm Report this commentJohn - spot on.
John de Finchley
August 12th, 2008 11:42am Report this commentVerity
I believe Laura Spence did biochemistry at Harvard and is now studying medicine at Cambridge. She got a scholarship to Harvard but on the basis of need, rather than brilliance; an assisted place, as it were.
In 2001 she went public to say that Oxford was right to reject her:-
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/education/1443063.stm
So typical of Labour to pick its little cause celebre basly. I'm reminded of the skipper of the Belgrano agreeing that he deserved to be torpedoed
Verity
August 12th, 2008 7:58pm Report this commentJohn de Finchley - Many thanks. Reminds me of all those confessions Chinese people made during the time of Mao.
I hope when she gets her medical degree, she returns to the United States.
JP
August 13th, 2008 11:35am Report this commentPlease! Please! Please! let his replacement be that harriden Yvette Cooper
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