It is not everyday that you make a loan to a bank but apparently we have all lent Northern Rock £900 each - or £24bn in total, which is not far off the UK's annual defence budget. Even more concerning was Alistair Darling's slight change of language today - when he first stepped in to guarantee the deposits of Northern Rock he said that the bank was profitable and that he was just helping it to overcome a short-term credit squeeze, but today he was talking about minimising the risk to the taxpayer.
It was bad enough that after ten "prudent" years of Gordon Brown managing the economy we saw the first run on a British bank since the Victorian era, but now that Mr Darling has apparently misled taxpayers and potentially cost us £900 each, it is hard to see how the Government can regain a reputation for economic competence. I suspect that Gordon Brown will tonight be hoping that Bill Clinton was wrong when he said,"It's the economy stupid!"
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