Alistair Darling

The Right Honourable The Lord Darling of Roulanish PC
Official portrait, 2007
Chancellor of the Exchequer
In office 28 June 2007 – 11 May 2010
Prime Minister	Gordon Brown
Preceded by	Gordon Brown
Succeeded by	George Osborne
Secretary of State for Trade and Industry President of the Board of Trade
In office 5 May 2006 – 27 June 2007
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Alan Johnson
Succeeded by	John Hutton[a]
Secretary of State for Scotland
In office 13 June 2003 – 5 May 2006
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Helen Liddell
Succeeded by	Douglas Alexander
Secretary of State for Transport
In office 29 May 2002 – 5 May 2006
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Stephen Byers[b]
Succeeded by	Douglas Alexander
Secretary of State for Work and Pensions[c]
In office 27 July 1998 – 29 May 2002
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	Harriet Harman
Succeeded by	Andrew Smith
Chief Secretary to the Treasury
In office 3 May 1997 – 27 July 1998
Prime Minister	Tony Blair
Preceded by	William Waldegrave
Succeeded by	Stephen Byers
Shadow Cabinet posts Shadow Chancellor of the Exchequer In office 11 May 2010 – 8 October 2010 Leader Harriet Harman (acting) Ed Miliband Preceded by George Osborne Succeeded by Alan Johnson Shadow Chief Secretary to the Treasury In office 25 July 1996 – 2 May 1997 Leader Tony Blair Preceded by Harriet Harman Succeeded by David Heathcoat-Amory
Parliamentary offices Member of the House of Lords Lord Temporal Life peerage 1 December 2015 – 28 July 2020 Member of Parliament for Edinburgh South West Edinburgh Central (1987–2005) In office 11 June 1987 – 30 March 2015 Preceded by Alex Fletcher Succeeded by Joanna Cherry
Personal details
Born	Alistair Maclean Darling (1953-11-28)28 November 1953 Hendon, Middlesex, England
Died	30 November 2023(2023-11-30) (aged 70) Edinburgh, Scotland
Political party	Labour
Other political affiliations	International Marxist Group[1]
Spouse	Margaret Vaughan ​ (m. 1986)​
Children	2
Alma mater	University of Aberdeen
Signature

Alistair Maclean Darling, Baron Darling of Roulanish, PC (28 November 1953 – 30 November 2023) was a British politician who served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under prime minister Gordon Brown from 2007 to 2010. A member of the Labour Party, he was a member of Parliament (MP) from 1987 to 2015, representing Edinburgh Central and Edinburgh South West.

Darling was first appointed chief secretary to the Treasury by prime minister Tony Blair in 1997, and was promoted to secretary of state for work and pensions in 1998. After spending four years at that department, he spent a further four years as secretary of state for transport, while also becoming secretary of state for Scotland in 2003. Blair moved Darling for a final time in 2006, making him president of the Board of Trade and secretary of state for trade and industry. After Brown succeeded Blair as prime minister, he promoted Darling to replace himself as chancellor of the Exchequer in 2007, a position he remained in until 2010.^[2] He served as chancellor during the 2007–2008 financial crisis and the Great Recession.

From 2012 to 2014, Darling was the chairman of the Better Together Campaign, a cross-party group that successfully campaigned for Scotland to remain part of the United Kingdom in the 2014 independence referendum.^[3] He was a vocal advocate for the Remain campaign for the 2016 European Union membership referendum.^[4] In November 2014, Darling announced that he was standing down at the 2015 general election.^[5] He was nominated for a life peerage in the 2015 Dissolution Honours and sat in the House of Lords until his retirement in 2020.^[6]

According to the Financial Times, Darling was "one of the most consequential post-war chancellors in modern British history".^[7]

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