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Alistair Darling

Alistair Darling is a Labour Party politician and Member of Parliament for Edinburgh South West. Born in 1953, Darling was first elected as MP for Edinburgh South West (then Edinburgh Central) in June 1987. Darling is the incumbent Chancellor of the Exchequer, having been appointed by Prime Minister Gordon Brown in June 2007. In 1997, he was appointed to Labour’s Cabinet as Secretary of the Treasury (having served as Shadow Secretary the previous year), before in July 1998 becoming Secretary of State for Work and Pensions. In May 2002, Darling became Secretary of State for Transport and four years later became Secretary of State for Scotland. After three years in office, Darling was moved to Secretary of State or Trade and Industry in May 2006, before being promoted in June 2007 to Chancellor of the Exchequer after the position was left vacant with the rise of Gordon Brown to Prime Minister.

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'Extra £13bn a year in cuts and tax' needed to balance books Darling grilled on 'missing details' of Whitehall cuts Alistair Darling won’t row back over bonuses supertax Alistair Darling rejected advice to tell MPs about secret bank loans Darling to hit bankers with windfall 'supertax' Alistair Darling to make the economy less dependent on City Alistair Darling hits rich harder with 'class war' taxes Alistair Darling's priority to convince City he will cut debt Tax rises as Darling forced to tear up borrowing forecasts

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Interest rates will surge to 6.5% by 2015, Barclays says

04.02.10
Interest rates will soar over the next five years despite feeble economic growth and rising unemployment, leading economists warn... more

'Extra £13bn a year in cuts and tax' needed to balance books

03.02.10
Next government will have to slash spending or hike taxes by an extra £13 billion a year to get Britain’s finances back on track, a leading independent think-tank warns ... more

'Government needs more cuts and taxes to stall rising debt'

03.02.10
The Government’s plans for public spending cuts will not be enough to stop the rising national debt, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research warns... more

Conservative plans hide £60billion black hole, says Chancellor

04.01.10
Alistair Darling accuses Tories of hiding a £60billion shortfall in their economic plans as he claims David Cameron wants to win the election 'on a nod and a wink'... more

Darling grilled on 'missing details' of Whitehall cuts

16.12.09
Alistair Darling under pressure to spell out the scale of public spending cuts needed to rescue Britain's finances... more

Alistair Darling won’t row back over bonuses supertax

15.12.09
Alistair Darling is set to extend the scope of his supertax on City bonuses despite pleas from banks for special deals to water down the impact of the levy... more

Alistair Darling rejected advice to tell MPs about secret bank loans

15.12.09
Chancellor Alistair Darling over-ruled civil servants to keep secret £62billion of loans to RBS and Lloyds, it has emerged... more

Bankers simply must accept a lean year

14.12.09
The government finances are as good this week as they were last and anyone with a modicum of economics knows that the deficit - huge though it is - is what has kept us from a Thirties-style depression.... more

War hasn't broken out but rows may still hurt economic revival

11.12.09
Alistair Darling was on cheerful form at a Christmas drinks reception for the media at the Treasury last night... more

City Spy: Reuters ahead of the game on PBR

11.12.09
How can it be right that the Reuters newswire was able to put up on its trading screens highlights from the Pre-Budget Report - in some cases, a whole minute or so before Chancellor Alistair Darling himself had actually said them?... more

Think-tank experts paint bleak picture of deep cuts

10.12.09
Deep cuts in transport, universities, defence and housing budgets will be forced in the wake of Alistair Darling’s mini-Budget, the Institute for Fiscal Studies said tonight... more

I don’t know what your game is Darling, but I’d call it balls

10.12.09
The run-up to Alistair Darling’s windfall tax on bankers’ bonuses created a veritable cacophony of mangled sporting metaphors... more

Darling denies claims of cynical con over benefit handouts

10.12.09
Chancellor forced on defensive amid claims he is raising child benefit and disability payments before the general election only to let them fall back a year later... more

City Spy: The grim reality in Darling’s numbers

10.12.09
How very different yesterday’s Pre-Budget Report was from Alistair Darling’s first as Chancellor in October 2007, when he proudly boasted that Britain is “the fastest growing advanced major economy in the world”... more

Painful treatment from Mr Darling

09.12.09
Today's pre-Budget report was never going to be easy for the Chancellor, Alistair Darling... more

Bosses' relief as national pension plan is postponed

09.12.09
Employers got at least some relief when the Government revealed that it will delay plans to force them to contribute to personal pension accounts for staff... more

SMEs give Darling's Time To Pay scheme the thumbs up

09.12.09
Small businesses welcomed the Chancellor's decision to defer an increase in corporation tax but gave a lukewarm response to other measures... more

Why all the gloom is being overdone

09.12.09
When the dust has settled on the pre-Budget report it might just be that the most significant lasting thing to emerge is the creation of Infrastructure UK, under the chairmanship of Paul Skinner, till recently with Rio Tinto... more

Darling to hit bankers with windfall 'supertax'

09.12.09
Alistair Darling will announce a major raid on the City and plans to harvest more tax from the rest of the public, as he delivers his crunch Pre-Budget Report... more

Chancellor woos the two fat ladies in bingo land

09.12.09
First the good news. Bingo duty is being cut by two per cent. This unashamed embrace of the Two Fat Ladies' vote (Labour heartland anyone?) was about as cheerful as it got... more

Bankers hit with 50% tax on bonus pools for big payouts

09.12.09
Pre-Budget Report: Alistair Darling was locked in a fierce battle with City bankers over forcing them to pay a super-tax on bonuses... more

Tough but fair (just forget about the past 12 years)

09.12.09
Blame greedy bankers. Kick overpaid public sector high-rollers. Scrap wasteful civil service programmes. Even, by implication, nurses, teachers and police are roped in, to be made to face caps in their pay. This chancellor is well hard — got that? ... more

Investment banks under pressure to save small firms

08.12.09
Investment banks are under pressure from the Government to pump tens of millions of pounds into a new lending pot for small businesses... more

Alistair Darling to make the economy less dependent on City

08.12.09
Alistair Darling's pre-Budget report will plan to make the national economy less dependent on the City... more

Alistair Darling hits rich harder with 'class war' taxes

04.12.09
Chancellor Alistair Darling plans to ram home Labour's 'class war' with more taxes on the rich in the pre-Budget report... more

Alistair Darling's priority to convince City he will cut debt

03.12.09
Alistair Darling rebuffs pressure for a spending review ahead of the election and is instead giving priority to convincing the markets he has a credible plan to slash debt... more

Darling in rearguard action to stop French pulling City strings

02.12.09
Alistair Darling is locked in a fierce battle to stop France undermining the City’s position as Europe’s top financial centre... more

Alistair Darling defends decision to keep bank loan secret

25.11.09
Chancellor Alistair Darling defends his decision to keep secret an emergency £61.6 billion loan made by the Bank of England to Royal Bank of Scotland and HBOS... more

Tax rises as Darling forced to tear up borrowing forecasts

19.11.09
Record leap in borrowing brought an admission from the Prime Minister that taxes may be about to go up again... more

City’s fury at Darling plans to curb banks’ bonus culture

16.11.09
There was growing anger across the City today over plans the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling has to “tear up” bankers’ bonus contracts ... more

More related topics: Alistair Darling and

  • Facts
  • Darling has been married since 1986 and he and his wife have two children, one born in 1988, the other born in 1990
  • In May 2009, Darling was implicated in the MP Expenses scandal, after it was revealed that he had flipped the designation of his second home 4 times in as many years, allowing him to buy and furnish a flat in London as well as claim for the costs of his family home in Edinburgh
  • Darling attended the University of Aberdeen and earned a Bachelor of Laws. In 1977, Darling was a supported of the International Marxist Group, part of the Trotskyist Fourth International.
  • It has been noted by the media that three of four of Darling’s junior ministers at the Treasury are female and have been nicknamed ‘Darling’s Darlings’
  • In 2008, Darling was criticised for bluntly stating that the economic climate would not improve in the short-term, however, he has defended his comments, citing his duty to be ‘straight’ with the public
  • Darling was Chancellor of the Exchequer at the time of the 2007 child benefit data scandal, when the confidential details of 25 million people went missing when they were being sent from his department to the National Audit Office

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