There is something refreshingly honest about Alistair Darling. He is that rare beast among politicians – honest, direct and plain-speaking. He not only (correctly) predicted the worst recession for 60 years, but also (accurately) assessed that people are ‘pissed off’ with Labour.
The Chancellor did not quite call Gordon Brown Satan, but it is certainly what he implied.
He leaves us with no illusion about the unpleasantness he endured after revealing to the world the likely depth and duration of this recession. ‘The forces of hell were unleashed’, he says.
Hell is, of course, a place of fiery punishment and torment where the souls of the damned are confined after death. It is a state of misery or wickedness in the underworld, from which the demonic hordes are dispatched to plague, torment and tempt mankind into an eternity of darkness, separated forever from the truth, light and love of God.
Asked by the interviewer whether the forces of hell were unleashed by Number 10, Mr Darling responded: "Not just them, the Tories as well."
Well, one can excuse the Tories, for they are the party of opposition, and unleashing unpleasantness upon the Government is (presently) their raison d’être.
But the Chancellor quite explicitly confirms that ‘the forces of hell were unleashed’ by Number 10, and this is a reference to the backroom briefings, whisperings and destabilising activities of the Prime Minister's demonic henchmen Damian McBride and Charlie Whelan.
And let us not be naïve about this: they would not have so much as breathed a word against the Prime Minister’s most senior government colleague if they had not been directly ordered to do so – by the only person who could have ordered them to do so.
So when Gordon Brown categorically denies doing any such thing, we are left with a choice.
Do we believe the man who systematically destabilised his predecessor in Downing Street, who has a proven track record of briefing against colleagues and ‘bullying’ people to do his bidding; do we believe the self-serving political director of a trade union; do we trust the word of the one who left Number 10 last year after a disreputable email scandal?
Or do we believe the Chancellor of the Exchequer, who was honest enough with the electorate not only to forewarn us of the deepest and longest recession in history, but who also had the perspicacity of mind to observe that we are irredeemably ‘pissed off’ with this Labour Government?
