Gordon Brown has said any briefings against his then chancellor, Alistair Darling, in 2008 were “completely unfair”, as he acknowledged the complicated relationship that existed between the two men in the final years of the Labour government.
Brown paid tribute to Darling after his death this week, calling him a man of “integrity” and “wise judgment”.
But he also acknowledged that some Labour figures at the time may have briefed against Darling, while at the same time distancing himself from any such attacks. Darling spoke about the “forces of hell” being unleashed against him after giving a Guardian interview in 2008 in which he warned Britain faced “arguably the worst” economic downturn in 60 years.
Brown told BBC Radio 4’s Today programme on Friday: “I personally don’t know much about that, to be honest. One of the problems in government as you can say about afterwards is you have lots of people said to be briefing on your behalf who you don’t even know the names of, and so some of these things happen and you’ve got to apologise afterwards but you don’t actually know who has done them.”
Asked if he had apologised to Darling afterwards, Brown added: “If there had been a briefing against him that was attributed to me, yes of course. It was completely unfair.”
Darling’s family announced his death aged 70 earlier this week, after “a short spell in Western general hospital [in Edinburgh] under the wonderful care of the cancer team”.
His death prompted tributes from across the British political spectrum, with former prime ministers and party leaders paying testament to his calm style of leadership and decisive actions during the 2008 financial crash.
Brown praised Darling on Friday for the role he had played in shoring up the British economy after the crash. “Throughout the economic crisis we managed to find a way through that meant that the banks were recapitalised, the economy started to grow again,” he said. “Alistair deserves a huge amount of credit for the economy recovering so quickly after the fatal blows of the banking collapse so that by 2010 the economy was growing again.”
Brown has previously been criticised for allowing his aides to tell reporters Darling had harmed the economy with his 2008 comments about the scale of the recession to come, and should be sacked.
The former prime minister acknowledged on Friday he had tried to move Darling to the Foreign Office, only for the chancellor to rebuff him. However, Brown added that this was a bond between the two men, given Blair had tried to do the same to Brown when he was chancellor.
“The relationship between chancellors and prime ministers are an occupational hazard,” he said.
He added: “Tony offered me when I was chancellor the job of foreign secretary and I refused it because I wanted to stay as chancellor. I thought Alistair might want to be foreign secretary after being chancellor and he refused it because he wanted to be chancellor. So we understand each other pretty well.”
