Marking the launch of the LSE Economics Department podcast, Matthew Bradbury’s interview with Labour’s ex-chancellor Alistair Darling was insightful, informative, and solemn. Listening to Darling gave me an acute nostalgia for my primary school days where we would gather objects that best captured our age for a time capsule project: a CD, newspaper cuttings, a book, and place them all in a capsule deep underground, waiting to be opened in the indeterminate future. In between the sonorous tide of Bradbury and Darlings radio-perfect voices, the capsule to all the joys and pitfalls to New Labour’s past choices was flung open for all to experience.
The interview began with a discussion of the 2007-2008 recession and Darling’s response to it as Chancellor of the Exchequer. The fundamentals of the recession were covered succinctly. Facets including the psychological mechanisms behind the Northern Rock bank run and international cooperation during the crises. This was contrasted with Darling’s own precarious position.
In contrast to the fascinating discussion of cabinet and party responsibility, particularly during extremely trying periods (including the run-up to the Iraq War), much of Darling’s assessment of Brexit failed to offer a new perspective behind the dynamics causing it. While his judgement did not lack anything vital, one would have expected some fresh insight considering his unique position.
Immigration, on the other hand, was holistically discussed by Darling and Bradbury as they examined the development of anti-immigrant sentiment over the course of the early twenty-first century. Such an age seems like a millennia ago now.
Whilst strongly focusing on contemporary issues, Bradbury’s first episode works best as a piece of political-economic history. LSE students and current Labour leadership contenders would do well to learn from it.
