Alistair Darling Gets the Shaft in August/September 2008

[Yokai Man]

What it says on the tin.

Basically after Darling’s in-depth interview in late August 2008 where he talks about how the Recession will get worse and Labour will have difficult times ahead Gordon went ballistic and his spin doctors ran attack stories on Darling,with Brown planning to sack him but at the last minute decided to do that in the October reshuffle and then never did because,well,the economy did crash like Darling said.

What if Gordon stood on his ground and did sack him in late August/early September? Who would replace him? Would his replacement manage to deal with the situation falling apart like Darling did OTL?

If anything,this will make Brown’s legacy slightly worse and make the Richard III comparison more apt-especially the “killing messengers who bring bad news” part.

@Time Enough @Walpurgisnacht

 

[AH Layard]

Well Brown wanted Ed Balls as Chancellor: he was heavily reliant on him when they were at the Treasury and continued to seek his advice when PM. Darling complained that there were 'two Chancellors' and that Balls was marking his homework.

In August/early September, Brown and Balls were putting pressure on Darling for interventionist measures to address the housing crisis, e.g. a stamp duty holiday - but this was denying the scale of the problem, hence Darling's interview biting back.

The timing here is critical. If Darling is sacked very soon after the interview, say first week of September, then the party could be in serious trouble. OTL there was growing protest with dissenters in the PLP calling for a leadership contest and one junior ministerial resignation. Darling was weighing up resigning at the time, if he is pushed then others could follow, David Miliband, James Purnell, Hazel Blears, Jacqui Smith, John Hutton, and Alan Johnson were all on the fence (Purnell and Blears went in 2009). The Blairites really despised Balls and the prospect of dealing with him as Chancellor could have pushed them over the edge, but I'm not sure there is a long enough window for regime change even if there were multiple resignations, Brown would try to cling on for at least a week and would have a base in the PLP.

Both Brown and Darling's positions were strengthened by the collapse of Lehman Brothers on 15th September, removing either one of them after this became inconceivable. UK bank shares crashed and they were fighting against the clock to recapitalise the banking system.

There is a scenario then when Balls gets appointed early September, his probably causes some market jitters but paling in comparison to post-Lehman anyway. Balls was still closely involved in economic issues and knew the Treasury, and the response is likely to be the same in any case (I'm not sure there would be a great deal of ministerial disruption - but they were dealing in hours/minutes then so who knows?). The more interesting long-term consequence would be the party's response when the situation is more stable. There was the attempted coup against Brown in 2009, I suspect it would be involve more resignations including Miliband and have some chance at success: Balls was toxic within the party.

 

[Well]

What it says on the tin.

Basically after Darling’s in-depth interview in late August 2008 where he talks about how the Recession will get worse and Labour will have difficult times ahead Gordon went ballistic and his spin doctors ran attack stories on Darling,with Brown planning to sack him but at the last minute decided to do that in the October reshuffle and then never did because,well,the economy did crash like Darling said.

What if Gordon stood on his ground and did sack him in late August/early September? Who would replace him? Would his replacement manage to deal with the situation falling apart like Darling did OTL?

If anything,this will make Brown’s legacy slightly worse and make the Richard III comparison more apt-especially the “killing messengers who bring bad news” part.

@Time Enough @Walpurgisnacht

One potential big change is that IIRC Gordon Brown wanted to fight the 2010 election on the platform of 'investment versus cuts' but Darling resisted, thinking that was unrealistic. I understand that Darling's proposed deficit reduction plan was quite close to Osborne's, and very different from Balls's. I'm not sure how that might affect the result, or the parliament after though.

 

[Yokai Man]

Well Brown wanted Ed Balls as Chancellor: he was heavily reliant on him when they were at the Treasury and continued to seek his advice when PM. Darling complained that there were 'two Chancellors' and that Balls was marking his homework.

In August/early September, Brown and Balls were putting pressure on Darling for interventionist measures to address the housing crisis, e.g. a stamp duty holiday - but this was denying the scale of the problem, hence Darling's interview biting back.

The timing here is critical. If Darling is sacked very soon after the interview, say first week of September, then the party could be in serious trouble. OTL there was growing protest with dissenters in the PLP calling for a leadership contest and one junior ministerial resignation. Darling was weighing up resigning at the time, if he is pushed then others could follow, David Miliband, James Purnell, Hazel Blears, Jacqui Smith, John Hutton, and Alan Johnson were all on the fence (Purnell and Blears went in 2009). The Blairites really despised Balls and the prospect of dealing with him as Chancellor could have pushed them over the edge, but I'm not sure there is a long enough window for regime change even if there were multiple resignations, Brown would try to cling on for at least a week and would have a base in the PLP.

Both Brown and Darling's positions were strengthened by the collapse of Lehman Brothers on 15th September, removing either one of them after this became inconceivable. UK bank shares crashed and they were fighting against the clock to recapitalise the banking system.

There is a scenario then when Balls gets appointed early September, his probably causes some market jitters but paling in comparison to post-Lehman anyway. Balls was still closely involved in economic issues and knew the Treasury, and the response is likely to be the same in any case (I'm not sure there would be a great deal of ministerial disruption - but they were dealing in hours/minutes then so who knows?). The more interesting long-term consequence would be the party's response when the situation is more stable. There was the attempted coup against Brown in 2009, I suspect it would be involve more resignations including Miliband and have some chance at success: Balls was toxic within the party.

Enter Jack Straw then,who stayed on the fence since he wanted the job and didn’t want to aid someone else into getting it. Here, he would easily succeed.

Wonder how his Premiership would be,beyond the obvious horribleness.

 

[AH Layard]

Hm, I’m not sure about Straw, I don’t know how popular he was in the party then. Clearly he had a lot of Iraq War/rendition baggage and would alienate a lot of Muslim voters given this and his anti-veil comments - possibly a boon for Galloway. Gossip I heard from civil servants who worked with him back in the day was that he was personally very unpleasant.

David Miliband and Alan Johnson would probably be the alternatives. Although I don’t like Brown in the main, you have to wonder where we would have been without his relationships with the key players and institutional knowledge in October 2008 given the time critical decisions.