Pressure piling up on the Chancellor

Last updated at 16:52 20 November 2007


Since Alistair Darling took over at the Treasury in June he has come under fire over a string of issues, including:

• In September, Northern Rock applied for emergency funds from the Bank of England. Mr Darling failed to guarantee savings immediately and there was a run on the bank. Since then some £24 billion of taxpayers' cash has been spent propping it up.

• HM Revenue and Customs admitted that 41 laptops had been stolen during the 12 months to the end of September.

• Exchequer Secretary Angela Eagle was slapped down in September after suggesting the Government should consider hitting top earners with higher levels of tax.

• Mr Darling's pre-Budget report on 9 October was dubbed a "magpie's budget" after he took over Tory policies on cutting inheritance tax and a new levy on foreign "non doms" who pay no tax.

• Business has been in uproar over the Chancellor's move in the PBR to raise capital gains tax to 18 per cent.

• HMRC lost a CD containing information on 15,000 Standard Life customers last month.

• A laptop containing details of 400 ISA customers was also stolen last month from a revenue worker.

Just before Mr Darling took over, in May, about 42,000 families receiving tax credits were sent incorrect notices about the benefit because of a faulty printer. It is thought around 8,000 of these had their bank account details revealed to other people.

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