The Euro zone is on the cusp of further financial turmoil, warned former Chancellor Alistair Darling when he lectured students in London’s East End.

Mr Darling was speaking at the MA course at the University of London’s Queen Mary campus at Mile End last week where students are studying contemporary history of New Labour from 1997 to the party’s 2010 election defeat.

What is happening in Spain, where public sector cuts provoked a general strike and mass public discord, stands as a warning to the rest of the EU, he told the students.

“We’re in a lull in Europe, like going through cyclones,” he said. “You get in the middle and you think—great.

“Then you forget the other side of it. Spain is now in quite serious trouble and Italy isn’t out of the woods.”

Darling faced a backlash within the Labour Cabinet when he warned in 2008 that Britain was approaching its worst economic situation in more than 60 years. He was proved right shortly afterwards with the collapse of Lehman Brothers Bank—within months the UK was in recession.