Move over Darling
Posted by Tony on February 18, 2008
Poor old Alistair Darling. Less than eight months into one of British politics’ No. 2 job, his days are numbered as he lurches from crisis to crisis. To see him floundering in the Commons today was a bit like watching a toothless sheep being thrown to the wolves. What made it worse was that Gordon Brown was sitting behind him.
The economic mess is all of Brown’s doing, his legacy of a decade of financial mismanagement that has been hidden by the global buoyancy and massive borrowing. And although Darling is nominally in No. 11, few doubt Brown still pulls the strings, as he does with most senior departments. It’s not for nothing he has a reputation of being a complete control freak.
Darling’s days are numbered. The media has written him off, the public has no faith in him, and the City believes, to use the Tories’ phrase, he is a dead man walking. Northern Rock will be the nail in his coffin.
Brown thinks that nationalisation gets him out of jail. What is does guarantee is that the first time a house is repossessed it will be headlined as “Labour evicts householder”. It’s another dire news day waiting to happen for Brown.
In 1954 Anthony Eden took over as PM from Winston Churchill. It was a job he had coveted and been seen as a shoe-in for for nine years. In the end, he forced Churchill to resign. Less than three years later he resigned with his reputation in shreds. It seems unlikely it will take that long to finish Brown.
