Not such a Darling after-all
OH no not another political memoir!
This time its former Chancellor Alistair Darling who has decided to boost his over-inflated pension to justify his actions in the few years he had looking after our money.
Very few of these political books ever make any money but the writer makes his cash by selling the rights to a newspaper, usually one owned by Rupert Murdoch.
I myself was offered £240,000 to betray my former colleagues but decided against taking the thirty pieces of silver.
The sad thing is that I always thought that Darling was a decent sort of a chap and would never sell his soul so cheaply.
You may say that I’m not happy with the former Chancellor because he names me as one of the ‘Forces of Hell’ who allegedly made his life a misery by telling journalists ‘off the record’ that he wasn’t up to the job.
It never ceases to amaze me how soft-skinned some politicians are.
Even if it was true, which it isn’t, that I briefed hacks that he was useless so what?
Reading his memoirs you would think that he had been accused of murder or something worse. I was told as a kid that ‘sticks and stones can break your bones but words can never hurt you’.
Politicians like to blame others for their own inadequacies and spin doctors or even former spin doctors like me are an easy target.
Alistair Darling isn’t against spin doctors though because he himself appointed a new one when he took over as Chancellor, a fellow Scot and a former hack from the Herald and incidentally a Highlander.
If he had appointed someone with at least some experience of dealing with a hostile media he may not have made such a mess of his dealings with the press. He may also not have been so influenced to blame others for his misfortunes.
It was at his spin doctor’s farm, yes farm, down south that he had a secret meeting with failed plotter David Milliband.
Nothing came of their meeting but I can’t help thinking that if these plotters had spent half the time attacking the Tories as they did attacking their own Prime Minister then we would not have this coalition ruining our country.
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As usual it is my former boss Gordon Brown who comes it for most stick in these ‘books’. As usual he has kept a dignified silence.
The writers of these tomes are, of course, interested in trying to influence history but in the long run we won’t be fooled by self- satisfied rubbish where everyone else is to blame except the author.
What I would like to know from Alistair Darling is how he thought as a socialist that raising VAT, where the poor are hit disproportionately to the rich, was ‘fair.’
It isn’t of course which is why I publicly, not privately said so at the time.
It was Darling’s economic policy not anyone else’s that helped Labour lose the election – it’s just a pity that he prefers to blame others even though he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Last week my old pal Ed Balls was due to appear on the prestigious BBC Andrew Marr show to launch an attack on this government’s failed economic policy.
He was ‘bumped off’ because the BBC preferred to broadcast Alistair Darling attacking his fellow party members to boost his book sales.
As a result millions of people who are suffering the direct results of the Tory led cuts lost a voice defending them.
The cuts and people’s pension losses won’t affect the former Chancellor though, so why should he care?
