MAIL ON SUNDAY COMMENT: Darling ... from panic to denial in one easy step

When a politician actually dares to tell the truth, we find out why they are normally so reluctant to do so. They are frogmarched into TV studios and forced to recant - which duly happened to Alistair Darling after his panic-inducing outburst about the economy, which he rashly shared with a Guardian Woman on a storm-girt Scottish island.

It was embarrassing to watch him yesterday as he stumbled robotically and repeatedly through the unconvincing party lines that had presumably been dictated to him by his incandescent boss.

But can things possibly be as terrible as he claims?

If prospects truly have not been this bad for 60 years then we now face miseries unimaginable to our affluent generation. The 1947-49 crisis (also under a Labour Government) saw the country close to bankruptcy, a near shutdown of industry constant power cuts, bread rationing, and a huge devaluation of the Pound Sterling.

Let us hope we face nothing of the kind. If we do, would Mr Darling know? It is clear that he has very little clue about what is happening or what to do about it.

He confesses to having learned about the beginning of the current crisis by reading in a newspaper that the European Central Bank had started acting strangely.

It seems more likely that when he says this is 'arguably the worst' situation since the Forties, and that it will be 'more profound and long-lasting' than most of us expect, he is really talking about a Cabinet seething with leaderless mutiny, and a Labour Party visibly decomposing.

He plainly regards Gordon Brown as a colossal disappointment who has in the course of a year destroyed the smoothest, slickest political machine of modern times.

Yet when it came to the test, he obediently parroted the official version, rather than resigning.

This is hopelessly unsatisfactory for everyone involved.

The Prime Minister's planned economic relaunch is already sunk before it reaches the water. The Labour Conference looks likely to resemble a funeral in a downpour. Another Scottish by-election is on the way, with disaster more likely than not.

Yet nobody will put Mr Brown out of his misery by acting openly against him, because that would mean a General Election Labour would be bound to lose.

David Kelly: Let there be an inquest

Clear up the doubts

Yet more doubt is cast on the official version of the death of Dr David Kelly, this time by his close friend and colleague, Mai Pederson.

She says his suicide simply could not have taken place as described. She also produces unsettling accounts of frightening intimidation of the scientist by Iraqi agents during his visits to Baghdad.

While it is hard to see why Iraqi agents would have wanted to kill Dr Kelly when he had become a focus of opposition to the war, there is no doubt that many serious people have pointed to flaws in the police version of what happened on that day in July 2003.

There is a simple solution to this. Incredibly there has never been an inquest into his death.

The inadequate Hutton Inquiry is - wrongly - thought to have dealt with the matter. It plainly did not.

That inquest should now take place.