There are few people who would have swapped places with Alistair Darling last month as he faced the seemingly impossible task of steering a course between a politically expedient but fiscally disastrous ‘giveaway’ budget and alienating Labour’s core supporters with a clear plan to tackle the huge fiscal deficit.
Against this background, most commentators appear to agree he did well by doing nothing. This view appeared to be shared by the capital markets, with gilts, sterling and UK equities all broadly unchanged following the speech.
