Alistair Darling has accused Gordon Brown's aides of "unleashing the forces of hell" against him for accurately predicting the recession.
Daily Telegraph, February 2010.
Darling Reveals Labour Crisis Row: The last Labour government failed to "come through" the financial crisis politically because of profound disagreements at "the very top", former chancellor Alistair Darling has said.
Sunday Mirror, September 2011.
"How were we so blind?", Britain asks itself, "the clues must have been there all along", before remembering that, "they seemed so happy together." Well, Britain, I got news for you. Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling aren't the first 'happy' couple to have found themselves at one another's throats. Britain needs to grow up, and realise it doesn't always end like in the movies, unless those movies are The Break-Up, Kramer vs Kramer, or Apocalypse Now.
Richard Burton and Elizabeth Taylor: No-one loved marriage as much as Burton and Taylor. The pair notched up over 100 between them, with approximately thirty-three of those being to one another. You don't get married that many times without being committed. If the realities of a sacred union didn't meet their exacting standards, these two perfectionists just got a divorce, and re-married each other.
But behind this pretty pantomime of separation and re-marriage, lay a much uglier reality. Recent biographies tell of alcohol soaked rows and violent jealousy. Perhaps Burton's description of Taylor's "insipid double chin" and "slight potbelly" concealed an offensive sub-text? We shall never know.
Bert and Ernie: A heart-breaking example, in which the hostility is largely one-sided. To this day, Ernie remains fond of his longtime flat-mate, tolerating Bert's ill-tempered outbursts and general moodiness with upbeat good-humour. Bert, on the other hand, no longer hides his contempt for a puppet he views as lazy, intrusive, sentimental, and thoughtless.
Friends had always considered them poorly matched. Various interventions have been staged. Bob, a human neighbour, penned a special version of his hit song 'Who Are The People In Your Neighbourhood?', featuring the lyrics: ''a friend whose constant bickering with a mutual friend they stupidly decided to live with, makes it uncomfortable for everyone around them', is a person in your neighbourhood' and ''a friend, the other one, who stupidly decided to live with the first friend, and who is equally culpable for the constant bickering, which makes it uncomfortable for everyone around them', is a person in your neighbourhood.' This version has not proved such a hit with fans, many of whom say that they preferred the one with the dentist.
God and Satan: The original trouble in paradise. Yin and Yang, chalk to each other's cheese, and house to one another's fire, these two are often thought of as inseparable. After all, how can we understand goodness without an adequate conception of evil?
However, in spite of putting their differences to one side for a series of important collaborations, e.g. The Book of Job, Original Sin, and the poetry of Milton, the two always endured a difficult working relationship."It's a shame", explained angry scientist, Richard Dawkins, "they have so much in common".
God is said to resent Satan's success in high finance, journalism, the law, popular entertainment, and as a traffic-warden. Friends comment that he describes his former lieutenant as "basically a cloven-hoofed Neptune ". Satan for his part has responded with a series of statements backmasked in Led Zeppelin tracks.
Charles and Di: 'The Queen of Hearts' and her big-eared beau. We all agreed with the Archbishop of Canterbury when he argued it was "like something out of a fairy-tale" .That dress; those epaulettes. How wrong we were. It was more like the horror-story 'Dracula', where Dracula and his wife always argue because he talks to trees and she's always going on about land-mines
In spite of a series of tearful television interviews, in which the royal couple swapped insults and accusations, they did not get on. One of Britain's best kept secrets is that the two actually divorced in 1996. The successful cover-up has fuelled suspicions of an establishment conspiracy, involving Prince Phillip, Harrods, and Shep, the Blue Peter dog. Rumours continue to abound that Charles has found love elsewhere, possibly in the arms of teenage sweetheart, Prince Andrew.
The United States and the Soviet Union: Back in the salad-days of this relationship, the USSR liked the US so much she copied part of her name. They lived in each other's pockets, always recruiting one another's citizens as spies. If the Reds turned up in South East Asia, you could bet your bottom dollar or ruble that the Yanks wouldn't stay away for long.
Unfortunately, love, even obsessive, violent love, isn't always enough. In intense relationships, the most minor domestic disagreements can become magnified by surrounding emotional pressures. These two fell out over whether Capitalism was the best means of ensuring freedom and prosperity, or a bourgeois ideology which kept the working-classes from the fruits of their labour. A dispute which ruined the mid-20th Century for the rest of the world.