FORMER chancellor Alistair Darling has criticised the way Gordon Brown viewed the crisis as the global economy went into meltdown.

Speaking at Woodstock Literary Festival yesterday, Mr Darling said the Government should have acted quicker to shore up the UK’s economy.

He added Bank of England governor Mervyn King thought Northern Rock’s failure was an “isolated case”.

His new book, Back from the Brink: 1,000 days at No 11, which discusses his time as chancellor during the economic crisis, came out last week.

Former editor of the Independent Simon Kelner interviewed Mr Darling in front of about 300 people in The Orangery at Blenheim Palace.

Discussing his memoirs, he asked Mr Darling why he thought Mr Brown believed the economic crisis would be over within six months.

Mr Darling said: “I honestly do not know where he was getting that from.

“In the summer of 2008, I remember distinctly looking at all the evidence, and it was all pointing in one direction – a very, very sharp downturn.

“I think it is true to say part of the problem was that as the crisis developed Gordon came to distrust advice.”

He said by the election last year, which Labour lost, the Government had become “totally divided”.

Sir Mervyn was also criticised for not acting quickly enough to give cash to the banks.

Mr Darling said: “I had a disagreement with Mervyn King in the autumn of 2007.

“I was quite sure that unless we put money into the banking system it was going to seize up.

“Mervyn was looking at Northern Rock as an isolated case.”

The Government was forced to buy the bank in 2008 and then had to pump billions into the Royal Bank of Scotland after it made record losses.

Mr Darling added: “If you look back at the autumn of 2007, I made some mistakes too.

“We suddenly found ourselves in unchartered territory and it took too long to get under control.”

When asked if he thought cutting ties with Mr Brown would have helped Labour win the last election, Mr Darling said: “My guess is that it might have made a difference.

“If we lost 40 less seats we could have had a role in the discussions about the way the coalition could have been.

“As it was, we lost nearly 100 seats and had no moral right to do so.”

But he said, despite discussing ousting Mr Brown, he had supported him in the election because of “residual loyalty”.

In his closing comments, he said he was now enjoying taking a backseat role in politics – he is still MP for Edinburgh South West.

He said: “It is wonderful to have an entire weekend where the only person to phone is my daughter asking to have more money, as opposed to banks or other countries.”

COMING UP Today’s festival highlights include a debate on phone hacking featuring contributions from David Aaronovitch, Patrick Jephson, Lance Price and Stephen Glover.

The debate takes place at St Mary Magdalene Church at 2pm.

Then at 4pm, and 5.30pm, scientist Christopher Lloyd will entertain the whole family with his giant wall of 1,000 pictures showing the story of evolution.

At 5pm at St Mary Magdalene Church, poet Pam Ayres will talk about her new autobiography The Necessary Aptitude.

Tomorrow, at 10.30am in The Orangery at Blenheim Palace, Richard Dawkins will give a talk entitled The Magic of Reality: How We Know What’s Really True.

Then in the same venue at 12.30pm, novelist Margaret Drabble will talk about her collected stories. At 4pm, in the Courtyard restaurant of Blenheim Palace, William Cash and Douglas Hurd will discuss who runs Britain, in a discussion chaired by Prof Vernon Bogdanor.