Darling trashes King's record at Bank

Alistair Darling has launched a scathing attack on Mervyn King's governorship of the Bank of England during the financial crisis, and warned the government's decision to hand more power to the institution is a mistake.

The former Labour Chancellor said King failed to grasp the 2007 crisis, took the wrong policy action and undermined the Bank's independence by endorsing Conservative plans to break up the banks, according to the Financial Times. Darling said this track record was a warning not to hand the Bank its new role of supervising banks and spotting asset bubbles, which would put more power in the hands of the governor. Instead King and his successors should be "first among equals" with a proper board of directors, he said. "I do not think the Bank had an adequate or anywhere near adequate u...