‘Illusions and ignorance’ – an interview with Alistair Darling
Tonight, Ruv, the Icelandic State Broadcaster, will air a 30 mins. long interview I recently did with Alistair Darling Labour’s Chancellor of the Exchequer 2007-2010. In the interview Darling covers the events around the fall of the Icelandic banks in October 2008, the lack of trust the Chancellor had in the Icelandic government and their officials because they, as Mr Darling says, didn’t seem to be upfront about the problems Iceland was facing at the time. He also points out the failure of the UK regulators to spot the problems within the Icelandic banks operating in the UK.
There will be a link to the interview on Icelog after it’s been aired. For those who want to watch it tonight it’s scheduled at 22.15 GMT. The title is ‘Blekkingar og fáfræði,’ (E. Illusions and ignorance).
It’s interesting to keep in mind that according to the SIC report Mervyn King governor of the Bank of England offered the Icelandic Central Bank assistance in spring 2008 but his Icelandic counterpart didn’t respond to the offer. The Nordic Central Banks offered Iceland a loan in summer of 2008 against a promise to tackle certain things regarding the economy. No measures were taken to meet these promises. – The Labour government believed in light touch regulation. One of the side effects was too little attention to rogue lending by the Icelandic banks in the UK.
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