The death of former chancellor Alistair Darling at the age of 70 has come as a shock. The fact that he had been suffering from an aggressive form of cancer was known only to his doctors and his immediate family circle.
As chancellor of the exchequer from 2007 to 2010, he found himself in the eye of the storm of the worst financial crisis to hit the UK and much of the world since the 1920s. As one of the closely knit group of Scottish politicians at the top of the Labour party, he was asked to serve as chancellor when Gordon Brown finally took over the premiership from Tony Blair in the summer of 2007.
