Darling’s mood swings back to complacency - Cable

9.15.00am BST (GMT +0100) Wed 24th Sep 2008

Commenting on Alistair Darling’s speech at the Labour conference, Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor, Vince Cable said: "Talk about mood swings. We had a long period of complacency, followed by total despair a couple of weeks ago, only for the Chancellor to return to complacency in front of his party faithful."

Vince Cable continued, saying:

“The truth is that the British economy is in very serious trouble.

“It is certainly true that the Government’s reaction to the HBOS crisis and short-selling has been sensible, but I’m amazed that Alistair Darling wants to take credit for management of the Northern Rock fiasco.

“While I welcome the early indication of a banking reform bill to restore confidence in bank deposits, it isn’t clear that the Chancellor has understood the necessity for regulating bank capital to offset the boom and bust cycle.

“Nor is it clear how the Government proposes to use legislation to deal with the problem of the bonus culture, though clearly something drastic needs to be done.

“What the Chancellor doesn’t say is whether or not he plans to follow the demands from the United States administration to play Fairy Godmother to the banking system. He must make it clear that the British taxpayer is not going to bail out financial institutions in the same way here.”