At last, Alistair Darling, our silver chancellor, has woken up. Maybe, if he ever sits on Mastermind, he should choose as his specialist subject, the bleeding obvious. Because earlier this week he told a number of European newspapers, the financial crisis was “significant.” And then, like a sprinter who is ten minutes late for the start of a race, said “rapid action” was required.
Mr Darling, whose reputation as a safe pair of hands seems to have gone the way of England goalkeepers under the reign of Steve McClaren, is meeting up with fellow finance ministers from Germany, France and Italy – and presumably they hope to announce some kind of joint accord.
Later, the baton will be handed over to the big guys, and girl, when it’s the turn of prime ministers, presidents and German chancellors to meet.
A Treasury spokesman said, “The response to the recent financial turbulence must be international…Britain is leading that process with our European partners to ensure that any efforts are co-ordinated, measured and principle-based.”
The problem, though, besetting our silver surfer is this. Right now, in the Eurozone inflation is a very real worry. The latest set of data has revealed that Eurozone inflation is now at its highest level since May 2001 – okay, at 3.1 per cent it is not exactly runaway, but when the inflation rate hit that level in the UK last year, the press went into panic mode, and the governor of the Bank of England sat down, put pen to paper and wrote a letter to Gordon Brown explaining why it had all happened.
Perhaps even more worrying, December alone saw a 0.4 per cent rise.
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