The global economy is spluttering back into life. The Tories would have left it to choke to death.

This included the making of threats to the independent Rail Regulator that if he intervened to defend the company against the government's attempts to force it into railway administration – a special status for insolvent railway companies – the government would introduce emergency legislation to take the regulator under direct political control. 50 per person's details this data could have been sold for £60 million. He soon became an Opposition Home Affairs spokesman in 1988 on the frontbench of Neil Kinnock.

Spending four years at the department he spent another four years as Secretary of State for Transport also becoming Secretary of State for Scotland in 2003. He was Chancellor of the Exchequer from 2007 to 2010. Darling was appointed as Chief Secretary to the Treasury in 1997 moving to become Secretary of State for Work and Pensions in 1998.