Alistair Darling

Alistair Darling criticised over hidden £18bn indemnity plan

The Guardian (Free subscription) | 15 hours ago

Treasury flouted rules to conceal underwriting plan at the height of the banking crisis, according to report by MPs The Treasury flouted parliamentary rules to conceal an £18bn plan to underwrite loans made by the Bank of England to failing banks at the height of the ­banking crisis, according to a report by MPs today. The chancellor, Alistair Darling, refused to inform parliament of the...

• Treasury is failing to force banks to lend, warn MPs - The Independent

Martin Flanagan: Holding the banks to account is a worthy cause

Scotsman.com (Free subscription) | 15 hours ago

WHITEHALL'S august committee of public accounts came out swinging yesterday, having a pop at both the partly taxpayer-owned banks and the Chancellor, Alistair Darling.

THE BIG NEWS UK Family Planning Association issue unplanned pregnancy warning to older women over 35

The Daily Tiger (Free subscription) | 4 hours ago

(mollie darling) The Daily TIGER The UK Family Planning Association (FPA) says the message on infertility and age has gone “too far”. Although fertility does wane, women can still fall pregnant well into their thirties, forties and even fifties. Related posts:Iran election -Reports of Basij shooting older women + Gunshots (farhad rajarhali) Daily Tiger News on Twitter. Basij [...] Related...

Scrappage Scheme Helps Home Maintenance Franchise

Home (Free subscription) | yesterday

The government’s boiler scrappage scheme has boosted Blazes’ enquiries by 1,000%. The scheme, which was announced in Alistair Darling’s pre-budget report at the end of last year and launched on 5 January, aimed to encourage the estimated 4.5 million households with G-rated boilers to replace them with A-rated boilers that emit less carbon. The response from the public has been so...

Mervyn King goes dog sledding but all avoid seal meat at G7 summit in Canada

The Guardian (Free subscription) | yesterday

Hats off to the Bank of England's governor, Mervyn King, who found the time to go for a ride on a dog sled during the weekend's summit of G7 finance ministers, which Canada hosted in the remote Arctic city of Iqaluit. Here's a picture of Merv , who's tucked up nice and warm and looks like he's having a whale of a time. He declared the experience "wonderful". Ministers at the summit agreed...

Public spending: Battle of the budgets

The Guardian (Free subscription) | yesterday

Question: When is a public spending review not a public spending review? Answer: When it's a public spending round. The problem is that, in Treasuryspeak, there is now no such thing as a public spending round – the old annual "star chamber" battle between the chancellor and the Whitehall departments that was a familiar ministerial ritual of the past. When Gordon Brown became chancellor,...

Ireland's suffering offers a glimpse of Britain's future under the Tories

The Guardian (Free subscription) | yesterday

Brian Lenihan's spending cuts and tax hikes are sucking demand out of the Irish economy – and threaten to keep the Republic mired in recession alongside Greece Last December, on the same day that Alistair Darling delivered his pre-budget report to parliament, the Irish government announced its own plans for tax and spending. Darling said he would delay Britain's fiscal pain; Ireland's Fianna...

Budget ‘pencilled in’ for late March suggests May 6 election

Times Online (Free subscription) | yesterday

Alistair Darling and Gordon Brown have earmarked March 24 as Budget Day in the clearest signal so far that the general election will be on May 6.

G7 - banks should pay for recession

The Observer (Free subscription) | 07/02/2010

Finance ministers from G7 industrial nations insist financial ­institutions should bear cost of taxpayers' bailouts Alistair Darling believes plans for a new global levy or tax on banks could be agreed within 18 months after finance ministers from the G7 industrial nations insisted at the weekend that financial ­institutions should bear the cost of taxpayers' bailouts. The chancellor is confident...

Cutting It Fine With The Budget

Graham Pointer's Blog (Free subscription) | 07/02/2010

I see the headline in Sunday Telegraph is the possibility of the general election being on 15 April- the Thursday after Easter. I can see a problem with this- Parliament would have to be dissolved on 19 March. There has to be at least 3 months between the Pre-Budget Report and the actual Budget, which means that the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Alistair Darling, will have to present the Budget in the...

Headteachers say Labour’s £1bn cuts will ‘decapitate’ schools

Nipper News (Free subscription) | 07/02/2010

http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/feb/07/heads-must-make-1bn-savings Headteachers were warned at a government-funded conference to “tighten their belts” and prepare for tough times ahead, despite a pledge by the chancellor, Alistair Darling, that education spending would be protected. Ministers want headteachers to make a total of £1bn in efficiency savings without touching...

• Headteachers' warnings over cuts - The Guardian

Darling 'confident' on recovery

BBC News (Free subscription) | 07/02/2010

Chancellor Alistair Darling says the UK and other industrial nations are committed to public spending to bolster the return to growth.

G-7 Takes Off to the Great White North

Twenty-Cent Paradigms (Free subscription) | 07/02/2010

The Times reports : Finance ministers from seven of the world’s biggest economies concluded a meeting in the Canadian Arctic on Saturday with pledges to maintain their fiscal stimulus programs, despite rising worries among investors about the mounting debts of some European governments. “We are all absolutely committed to maintaining the support for our economies until we make sure that...

Years gone by

Working Class Tory (Free subscription) | 07/02/2010

Incidents like this : ALISTAIR DARLING’S special advisers were accused last night of dirty tricks as Treasury memos revealed how they put pressure on civil servants to “dig dirt” on Tory policies. Would have been able to bring down a government decades ago. That it never would nowadays is due to the fact incidents like this happen daily under Labour, and that our society has lost...

Tighten your belts, headteachers warned, despite Darling's pledge that spending on schools WILL be protected

Daily Mail News (Free subscription) | 07/02/2010

Headteachers have been warned to 'tighten their belts' despite a pledge from Chancellor Alistair Darling that spending on education will be protected.

• Headteachers' warnings over cuts - The Guardian