Alistair Darling, the chancellor, is to seek shelter from Britain’s economic storm by going on holiday to one of Scotland’s most remote islands.

He is to take his summer break at a former crofter’s cottage on the tiny isle of Great Bernera in the Outer Hebrides. The cottage, which overlooks the Atlantic, is on the edge of a hamlet with just 40 other inhabitants. At more than 500 miles from London, he is going about as far as he can without leaving the UK.

The start of the summer recess on Tuesday will find Britain’s political elite, accused of having their “snouts in the trough” after voting to keep generous perks, trying to demonstrate their new-found austerity with their holiday plans.

Gordon Brown, while free-spending with taxpayers’ money, is being parsimonious with his own. He will be taking his young family for a week in Southwold, Suffolk. David Cameron, the Conservative leader, is letting it be known that he is holidaying in Padstow, Cornwall. It emerged this weekend, however, that he will also be going to Turkey.

George Osborne, the shadow chancellor, will be heading to the Peak District and Greece, while Dominic Grieve, the new shadow home secretary, will be holidaying in France and the Caribbean.

On the Labour side Ruth Kelly, the transport secretary, is going to Singapore, while David Blunkett, the former home secretary, has chosen Tony Blair’s old favourite – Tuscany.

For sheer frugality Darling’s destination will take some beating. The chancellor and his wife Maggie will stay in a refurbished “black house” owned by his 84-year-old mother, where he spent many of his holidays as a boy. It is so named because they were traditionally built without chimneys and smoke blackened the dry stone walls.

A spokeswoman for Darling said: “It’s where he’s happiest in the world. When he’s sitting in the Treasury and thinks about the island it gives him solace. Every summer other members of the family will want to go to other places but Alistair will use every means he can to get them there.”

Darling is likely to spend some of his time fishing for mackerel in his dinghy, a pursuit he has enjoyed in the past with his cousin Andy Maciver, who is also the island’s most senior Tory.

Maciver has previously said: “There’s nothing quite like a conversation about income tax when you’re out in the boat taking mackerel in the driving wind and rain.”

Despite the remote location, Darling will not escape the signs of Britain’s economic woes. At the local petrol station the price of unleaded is 130.9p a litre and diesel is 147.9p.

Douglas Alexander, the international development secretary, and Ron Sandler, executive chairman of Northern Rock, the bank rescued by the government, are also planning holidays on the Scottish coast.

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, will be heading to Menorca and Hilary Benn, the environment secretary, to mainland Spain and Ireland. John Denham, the universities secretary, Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, John Hutton, the business secretary, and Paul Murphy, the Welsh secretary, are all heading to France for separate holidays.

By contrast Andrew Mitchell, the shadow international development secretary, is taking a team of Tory volunteers to Rwanda for a “life-changing experience” to work on a series of local projects. The team includes 10 MPs, 10 parliamentary candidates and a further 83 party members, many of whom are doctors and health specialists. Each volunteer is paying £1,000 for his or her airfare and living expenses.

It is not all hard work, however. At the end of the fortnight Mitchell will take his family to Kenya for a holiday.

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