Tom Richmond: When good sense took a break at the treasury

Less comment has been made of the former Chancellor’s criticisms, in his memoirs, about the Treasury’s lack of readiness for a financial crisis on the scale experienced over the past four years.

Darling describes in his book charting his turbulent 1,000 days at Number 11 Downing Street that “many senior Treasury officials had never actually sat down with the Chancellor” because of Brown’s aloofness.

He then goes on to say how he only learned that 95 million euros had been pumped into the floundering European banking system, just prior to the run on Northern Rock, while reading the Financial Times on holiday in Madeira, and that the US Federal Reserve was making $12bn available.

Having not been briefed in his daily phone call, Darling reveals the difficulties that he had contacting his own private office. “It took several hours to find someone with any idea of what was going on,” he added.

“It was infuriating. Why hadn’t I been phoned? It was one of the cases when the civil servants dealing with the matter were so close to the problem that they did not see it for the crisis it was about to become.”

What a way to run a country. Not.

ONE person not name-checked in the Darling memoir is Robert Peston – the BBC’s over-excitable business editor.

When it comes to Peston’s big “scoop”, the run on Northern Rock, the former Chancellor talks in less than complimentary terms about the leak.

I’m not surprised. BBC news bulletins on prime-time TV or radio slots are no longer about the facts – they are merely intended to increase the profile of Peston and the equally irritatating political editor Nick Robinson.

Take this week’s Vickers report into banking. As Peston became even more over-the-top with his analysis, Robinson (who appears to view his colleague as a rival) dismissed this by saying, from outside 11 Downing Street, that the political response had been “low key”.

If only the same could have been said about his egotistical colleague.

CALL me cynical, but could David Cameron’s decision to rush through boundary changes, cutting the number of MPs by 50, a move to make it more difficult to identify where the cuts have fallen? With some seats crossing local authority and county boundaries, the phrase “lies, damn lies and statistics” will become the most used in politics.

Cameron should be careful.

As MPs fight for seats, they are likely to be more outspoken as they try to impress potential suitors. Who says so? Sir John Major, the last Conservative Prime Minister, whose final years in Downing Street coincided with the fallout from boundary changes that saw Norman Lamont, his one-time Chancellor, rejected by the voters of Harrogate after his suburban London seat was abolished.

I SEE the riots have led to David Cameron becoming even more reckless with his comments about those on benefits. Parents whose children will truant could be docked money, he says. Likewise, those who refuse state support to help their errant offspring mend their ways. What nonsense. There is a fundamental flaw with the PM’s argument. He assumes that all truants and thugs emanate from poor families. They do not.

IT is perturbing that some police are reportedly scaling back patrols to snare drink-drivers. I’m aghast – especially given the number of road users flouting the law when it comes to the use of mobile phone. Travelling into Leeds in the past week, I’ve seen a driver texting while behind the wheel – and a cyclist veering into the carriageway while they talked on their phone. Will anything be done?

TALKING of the police, Rotherham MP Denis MacShane stresses that British policing is rooted in the community and any officer appointed to a senior position should “h ave spent a year or two on the beat” rather than being parachuted into top jobs. He’s right, but this concept should go further. Nick Hancock, the TV comedian, made a serious point – he says every Schools Minister should spend a term in a classroom before they take up their political duties. The same also applies to health ministers and the NHS, especially as more MPs enter high office with little experience of the real word because politics is their only vocation.

GIVEN tourism’s importance to the Yorkshire economy, was it not disappointing that just six of the region’s 54 MPs turned up to speak in Wednesday’s Parliamentary debate on the subject?

ARE there any sporting siblings in the country as competitive, and strong-willed, as Alistair and Jonathan Brownlee, the Leeds brothers, house-mates and training partners who were first and second in this year’s world triathlon series? I’m amazed at the frequency at which they punish their bodies as they race against time in the 1,500m swim, 40km bicycle ride and 10km sprint to the finishing line.

But what is most humbling is their awareness of their roots – they carry the flag of Yorkshire, rather than the Union Jack, across the finishing line. It is free publicity that this county cannot buy.

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