Howls of protest

Alistair Darling, who was Britain’s finance minister 10 years ago, recalled how his warnings of a looming disaster for the economy, made shortly before the Lehman crash, had generated howls of protest from economists and fellow politicians.

“But I could see the rupture in the financial system was quite catastrophic,” he said. For Darling, the damage done by the crisis in Britain was all the greater for the decision taken in 2010 by the government to aim for the eradication of the country’s budget deficit in only five years.