One can't help but feel a fleeting twinge of sympathy for Alistair Darling. The UK's increasingly hapless and hitherto invisible Chancellor of the Exchequer having realised about twelve months after pretty much everyone else in the country that the cup of plenty and prudence he'd inherited from Gordon Brown was more of a poisoned chalice simply wanted to unload the excruciating burden of knowing the country is facing its worst economic crisis in 60 years.