Surprise resignation
Without explanation, Alistair Darling recently stepped down from the body which represents lawyers, (Faculty of Advocates) with whom he had been admitted to practice as an advocate before the Courts of Scotland. Although he had proudly retained his membership of the Faculty long after he gave up practicing law, he may well have believed he had no alternative but to resign when it began an inquiry into his conduct following the The Daily Telegraph’s disclosure that he had “flipped” his second home three times in four years and put his accountant’s fees for tax advice on his office allowance. While entitled to a grace-and-favour flat in Downing Street, Darling had claimed living costs against a flat in London and his family home in Edinburgh at different times
Loss of child benefit data
Alistair Darling was yesterday forced to explain to lawmakers how two unencrypted disks containing records of 7.3 million families claiming child-benefit payments had gone missing from the tax authority, which is overseen by the Treasury. The loss, the largest of its kind in U.K. history, lays open the 25 million people named in the data to the risk of fraud and theft.
