Having read a lot of bad press about HM Revenue & Customs and government policy particularly to do with tax in recent months I thought it would be interesting to take a brief look at the background of the person now in charge of the finances and the tax legal system in the UK.

Alistair Maclean Darling (born November 28, 1953) is a British politician appointed as Chancellor of the Exchequer 28 June 2007 replacing Gordon Brown. His political background is:

• State for Trade & Industry 5 May 2006 to 27 June 2007
• Secretary of State for Scotland 13 June 2003 to 5 May 2006
• Secretary of State for Transport 29 May 2002 to 5 May 2006
• Secretary of State for work & Pensions 27 July 1998 1997 to 29 May 2002
• Chief Secretary to the Treasury 3 May 1997 to 27 July 1998.

Soon to be 54 at the time of writing this article he has been in politics since 1982 when he was elected as a councillor to the Falkirk District Council until be was elected to parliament in 1997.  Having been a career politician since the age of approx 29 he was previously a solicitor from 1978 at the age of 25. In other words he spent 4 years in the commercial working world before becoming a local politician.

Bearing in mind the time and effort it takes to get elected in reality much of the 4 years in the commerical working world must have been spent trying to get into politics.   

In his book Servants of the People Andrew Rawnsley described Darling as a "managerial technocrat" and he has been voted Britain's most boring politician two years running. His cat is called Sybil after Sybil Fawlty from the sitcom Fawlty Towers and the previous cat was called Humphrey after Sir Humphrey Appleby in Yes Minister so either he or his wife, Margaret,  have a sense of humour.  If it is his wife maybe she is trying to subtly tell him something?

Born in London, England he is the son of an engineer. He is the great-nephew of Sir William Darling who was Conservative MP for Edinburgh South between 1945 and 1957.

Mr Darling was educated at Kirkcaldy, and the private Loretto School, Musselburgh, East Lothian, Scotland and then attended the University of Aberdeen where he was awarded a Bachelor of Laws (LL.B) going on to become a solicitor in 1978.  Changing course to the Scots Bar and was admitted as an advocate in 1984. 

He has also been a board member for the Lothian and Borders Police and was a governor of Napier College in 1985 for two years.

So there is the background and how does this compare to Gordon Brown. With what seems to be so many politicians who were previously solicitors or barristers (Tony Blair being an obvious example) I have to say I just assumed Gordon Brown would have a legal background as well. Gordon Brown it seems started his career as a lecturer in Politics at Glasgow College of Technology before working as a Journalist for Scottish Television. He finished his education by gaining an Master of Arts degree followed by a PhD his thesis "The Labour Party and Political Change in Scotland 1918-29".

Just how different would tax law be if career politicians were not in responsible for drafting and proposing it. Perhaps Richard Branson or some other successful businessman could be given the job of balancing the books and drafting the legislation required to balance the books. It would almost certainly be a lot clearer and propably a lot fairer in the process !

Would HMRC be good at drafting tax legislation? Again is there any experience of actually building a business or working in an enviroment that is creative, progressive or dynamic? HMRC's job is not really condusive with drafting fair legislation in my opinion. Their job is to enforce the law and collect the taxes required to run the United Kingdom but actually drafting the rules... No me thinks. If HMRC had their way (as they did'nt in the Arctic Systems case business would be very restricted and defined in narrow limited constraints.

So who should draft tax legislation?. It should be a combination of people and due to the political nature of the UK politicians are obviously an important key to the process. Perhaps making this more independent, a bit like the way the Bank of England now functions could have it's benefits.  Ordinary hard working citizens could no doubt make a useful contribution.

How all the hard earned tax paid to the Government is spent? Well there's another related question for another day...