Alistair Darling was apppointed Chancellor of the Exchequer by Gordon Brown in 2007 (when Brown bcame Prime Minister ) and held the role until 2010
His tenure coincided with the emerging Global Financial Crsiis and it aftermath. In September 2007 there was a run on a British Bank , the first since 1860, when Northern Rock ran out of funds.
add Northern Rock stuff
In September 2007, for the first time since 1860, there was a run on a British bank, Northern Rock. Although the Bank of England and the Financial Services Authority have jurisdiction in such cases, ultimate authority for deciding on financial support for a bank in exceptional circumstances rests with the Chancellor. The 2007 subprime mortgage financial crisis had caused a liquidity crisis in the UK banking industry, and Northern Rock was unable to borrow as required by its business model.
Darling authorised the Bank of England to lend Northern Rock funds to cover its liabilities and provided an unqualified taxpayers’ guarantee of the deposits of savers in Northern Rock to try to stop the run. Northern Rock borrowed up to £20 billion from the Bank of England,
In October 2008 the government bailed out the Royal Bank of Scotland as part of the 2008 bank rescue package; Darling said in 2018 that the country was hours away from a breakdown of law and order if the bank had not been bailed out.[30]
Stimulus spending
To boost falling demand, the government announced an additional £20bn spending package. Subsequently, Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, warned the government against further stimulus spending, due to insecure public finances.[32]
Budget 2009
On 22 April 2009, Darling delivered his second budget speech in the House of Commons. To stimulate the motor industry, a £2,000 allowance was announced for a car more than 10 years old, if it was traded in for a new car. A 50% tax band was announced for earners of over £150,000 to start the following tax year.
Darling also announced that Personal allowance would be tapered down by £1 for every £2 earned above £100,000 until it reached zero. This resulted in an anomalous effective marginal tax rate of 60% above £100,000, with the marginal tax rate returning to 40% for incomes above £112,950.
when the moment of maximum danger came, Brown had the right diagnosis and did largely the right things. This is as close as contemporary, , politics comes to heroism. – Charaboty
The same goes for that most controversial of Brown’s policies as prime minister – to offset a global recession by cutting taxes and creating jobs for young people. That decision has never got the credit it deserves. As the former Bank of England policy-maker Danny Blanchflower notes in the most recent New Statesman, the budget stimulus led to Britain’s economy actually growing 3.1% between the autumns of 2009 and 2010. Under the coalition in the year afterwards, it grew 0.3%.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2012/feb/06/gordon-brown-save-world-uk https://www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctt24hf3m.8
