Back from the Brink
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Tokyo Ref1
transport issues Ref1
Treasury Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7, Ref8, Ref9
and Bank of England Ref1
and fiscal rules Ref1
lack of concern over banking sector in early briefings Ref1
ref1urbishment of Ref2
relationship with Brown and No.10 Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5
Treasury select committee hearings (2009) Ref1
Troubled Assets Relief Programme see TARP
TUC Ref1
Tucker, Paul Ref1
Turner, Adair Ref1, Ref2
UBS Ref1
UKIP Ref1
Ulsterbank Ref1
unemployment Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7, Ref8
United States: economy (2009) Ref1
housing market Ref1, Ref2, Ref3
recession Ref1
US Federal Reserve Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7, Ref8
Ussher, Kitty Ref1
Vadera, Shriti Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
Varley, John Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4
VAT Ref1, Ref2, Ref3, Ref4, Ref5, Ref6, Ref7, Ref8
Virgin Money Ref1
Wachovia Ref1
Wall Street Crash (1929) Ref1
Walliams, David Ref1
Watt, Nick Ref1
Weatherill, Bernard Ref1
Wen Jiabao Ref1
WestLB Ref1
Whelan, Charlie Ref1, Ref2
White, Sam Ref1
Wilson, Brian Ref1
Wilson, Harold Ref1
World Bank Ref1, Ref2
youth unemployment Ref1
Zoellick, Bob Ref1
A Note on the Author
Alistair Darling is the Member of Parliament for Edinburgh South West. Initially appointed as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 1997, he moved to become Secretary of State for Social Security in 1998 and then Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 2002. He then spent four years as Secretary of State for Transport, also becoming Secretary of State for Scotland in 2003. He served as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry in 2006, before Gordon Brown promoted him to Chancellor in 2007, a post he held until the change of government in May 2010.
01. In September 2007, panic levels rose as savers queued to get their money out of Northern Rock, in the first run on a UK bank in over a century.
02. Tony Blair’s first cabinet in 1997. Top row, from left: Nick Brown, me, David Clark, Clare Short, Mo Mowlam, Chris Smith, Frank Dobson, Ann Taylor, Harriet Harman, Ron Davies, Lord Ivor Richard, Gavin Strang, Sir Robin Butler. Bottom row, from left: Donald Dewar, Margaret Beckett, Jack Straw, Robin Cook, John Prescott, Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, Lord Irvine, David Blunkett, Jack Cunningham, George Robertson. By the end, there were only three of us who’d been there all the way through: Jack Straw, Gordon and me.
03. Gordon’s first cabinet in 2007: Top row, from left: Beverley Hughes, Yvette Cooper, Lord Grocott, John Denham, Baroness Ashton, James Purnell, Ed Balls, Hazel Blears, Geoff Hoon, Ed Miliband, Shaun Woodward, Andy Burnham, Tessa Jowell, Baroness Scotland, Sir Mark Malloch-Brown, Sir Gus O’Donnell. Bottom row, from left: Peter Hain, John Hutton, Hilary Benn, Des Browne, Jack Straw, me, Gordon Brown, David Miliband, Jacqui Smith, Alan Johnson, Douglas Alexander, Harriet Harman, Ruth Kelly. Just before the banking storm hit.
04. At the G20 meeting in Berlin, February 2009. From left: Mervyn King (Governor of the Bank of England), me, Angela Merkel (Chancellor of Germany) and Gordon.
05. In Washington, October 2008: with my fellow finance ministers in the Rose Garden of the White House.
06. Above: Sir Tom McKillop, former Chairman of RBS and Sir Fred Goodwin, former Chief Executive of RBS, leaving parliament, February 2009.
07. Below: On the Downing Street doorstep with Margaret, on the day of my final budget, March 2010. The red box I’m holding was made originally for William Gladstone in the 1860s.
08. Margaret and me meeting the Obamas on their first official visit to London, April 2009.
09. Assembling in Downing Street, in April 2009, on the eve of the crucial G20 summit in London, with our American counterparts. From left: David Miliband (Foreign Secretary, 2007–2010), Hillary Clinton (Secretary of State, 2009–), Gordon, President Obama, Tim Geithner (US Treasury Secretary, 2009–) and me.
10. In calmer waters: inspecting a wind farm at Whitstable with Tony Blair in July 2006.
11. The haves . . .
12. . . . And the have yachts.
Me, on my Orkney spinner in Lewis, summer of 2008, while my opposite number, George Osborne, was on Oleg Deripaska’s megayacht – an altogether different vessel – in the Mediterranean.
13. Above: A Lehman Brothers employee leaving the London headquarters in Canary Wharf, on 15 September 2008, the day it was announced that the bank had filed for bankruptcy.
14. Left: Addressing the Labour Party Conference, 28 September 2009.
15. On the Isle of Lewis in 2008 at the time of my interview with the Guardian, just before the forces of hell were unleashed.