Westminster blog

His allies admit it will have to happen. Ministers just think he should just get on with it. The Tories, meanwhile, are licking their lips at the prospect of Gordon Brown stubbornly refusing to give way. The longer he holds out, they say, the more painful the eventual capitulation will be. The pressure is building. At some point, Brown may be forced to break the unspoken golden rule of his political career and say sorry.

It is unlikely to be straightforward. When it comes he will probably admit that mistakes were made, or some suitably unspecific formulation. But it will be the gesture of “humility” that even the Alistair Darling now says is required. In his interview with the Daily Telegraph, the chancellor takes the significant step of acknowledging that everyone — even his predecessor — must accept some responsibility for what went wrong. Blaming the US, subprime bankers, global forces or shirt-sleeved speculators will no longer wash with the public.

The chancellor seems to be playing the unlikely role of cabinet outrider, by daring to speak uncomfortable truths. After his last big interview with a feature writer in late August, Darling was pilloried for suggesting the world economy was in bad shape. He is now, perhaps, pre-empting the blast of public anger that could soon target under-achieving politicians instead of overpaid bankers.

Will Brown eventually admit to mistakes? His speech to Congress would have been a good point to do it, given that he would be surrounded by lawmakers who are arguably more culpable than him. But there are still no signs of him giving in. Brown today told aides that an apology would just bring a hammering from the Tories. This may be true. The danger is that Brown will look increasingly out of touch as he stands alone waving a ‘no surrender’ flag.

Here are the key Darling quotes:

There are a lot of lessons to be learnt by regulators, governments, all of us. The key thing that went wrong was a culture was allowed to develop over the last 15 years or so where the relationship between what people did and what they got went out of alignment, especially at the top end.

If there is a fault, it is our collective responsibility. All of us have to have the humility to accept that over the last few years, things got out of alignment.

“There are some very hard questions to be asked about the regulatory model we have operated for the last few years. The model of us saying to [the bankers] ‘you say it’s OK to us and we’ll go along with it’ has failed…financial services have to be properly run and supervised.”