Economic discontent during the Depression turned the killers Bonnie Parker and Clyde Barrow into public darlings and folk legends, because they had the effrontery to rob the very banks posting the foreclosure notices on property that had been farmed into extinction; Faye Dunaway and Warren Beatty played Bonnie and Clyde.
Yes, a startup with just 65 employees could be worth more money on paper than those two public darlings.
Some will try to interpret this as a blow to Ed Balls, the children's secretary, often portrayed as coveting the Treasury job, his old stamping ground, but Balls privately has for four weeks been urging Brown to say in public that Darling will keep his job if he gets re-elected.
By resisting the siren calls for early cuts in spending while modestly boosting public investment, Darling has also not only made the right economic choice – any early withdrawal of the stimulus would almost certainly drive whatever modest recovery might be in store into a deeper slump.
Solyndra, which once had plans to sell stock to the public, was a darling of policy makers.
At 20, Ms. Lunkina, a porcelain figure with black hair and inherent elegance, has become the public's instant darling.
Where precisely will the Conservatives make big economies in public spending?Mr Darling has an opportunity to fill in the blank spaces later this year in his pre-budget report.
Recent opinion polls by Ipsos MORI have shown a depth of gloom surpassed only once in the past decade.Just as the non-doms received reassurance, so too did the public through Mr Darling's emollient economic forecasts.
For Zynga, a Silicon Valley darling whose public offering last December seemed to herald a wave of tech success, just about everything went wrong at once.
The High Speed 1 rail link was taken into public ownership last year, and Darling intends to use £1bn from the sell-off to attract a further £1bn from the private sector for a fund to be set up in 2011.
Darling said public debt was also expected to be lower than he had previously expected, though it will still continue to rise throughout the next parliament, peaking at 75% of GDP.
