About this Event:

Back from the Brink tells the gripping story of Alistair Darling’s one thousand days in Number 11 Downing Street. As Chancellor, he had to avert the collapse of RBS hours before the cash machines would have ceased to function; at the eleventh hour he stopped Barclays from acquiring Lehman Brothers in order to protect UK taxpayers; he used anti-terror legislation to stop Icelandic banks from withdrawing funds from British banks.  From crisis talks in Washington to dramatic meetings with the titans of international banking, to dealing with the massive political and economic fallout in the UK, Darling places the reader in the rooms where the destinies of millions weighed heavily on the shoulders of a few.  Here he gives a candid account of life in the Downing Street pressure cooker and his relationship with Gordon Brown during the last years of New Labour.

Alistair Darling is the Member of Parliament for Edinburgh South West, successively Secretary of State for Work and Pensions, Transport, and Scotland. In 2006 he served as Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, before Gordon Brown promoted him to Chancellor in 2007, a post he held until the change of government in May 2010.

He will be talking to Vernon Bogdanor, research professor, Institute of Contemporary History, King’s College, London, and a former professor of government at Oxford University. His books include The Coalition and the Constitution.

This event is supported by Ian and Carol Sellars.