The nationalisation of Northern Rock

Faceless Bureaucrat

So, if I now stop paying my Northern Rock Mortgage, will the Govt. dare to throw me onto the street?

ToryBoy

Who is going to replace Alistair Darling as Chancellor?

Austin Barry

Here's the problem: Take a global economy structured on a web of arcane financial derivative instruments, add the securitisation of crap credits splitting like metastizing cancer cells and sold on to careless punter banks, sprinkle on the voodoo strategies of hedge fund managers and you have a disaster boiling in the wings. So how to avoid this mess? Well, not by endless directives from the EU (UCITS III, MifID, MAD, the Third Anti-Money Laundering Directive etc. etc.), not by impotent regulators, of which the FSA is a prime example, and certainly not by vote-wheedling politicians whose understanding of financial matters is such that they can't even fiddle their expenses properly. So what emerges from from this avalanche of over-regulation and the new tyranny of compliance? Well, Northern Rock: as unwelcome as an erection in a nudist colony, but just as inevitable and likely the first of many.

Alice DeDahlin

Gordon Brown left the Treasury at exactly the right moment, when the ship hit the iceberg. I wonder whether he is going to do his usual McCavity the Cat disappearing trick and try and escape all the responsibility for the mess he has created. He will watch from the sidelines as Alistair Darling sinks deeper into the quicksand and he will thank his lucky stars that he doesn't have to take the blame for his own economic incompetencies.

Trumpeter Lanfried

Faceless Bureaucrat. [4.24 PM] No, you're quite safe. No need to make any more repayments.

Oscar Miller

Everyone knows Darling is the fall guy - Gordon Brown will not escape blame. But it was a bit creepy watching Yvette Cooper on C4 being asked if Darling should resign. She really didn't protest too much. There's something of Lady Macbeth about our Yvette. One could feel sorry for AD.

Austin Barry

Darling always reminds me of a melancholic panda. More so now, as he slowly hauled up on to be nailed on the Cross of Balls ambition and the let's-cover-the-trail strategem of Brown. One feels some sympathy for him, but not much.

J. Wright

Northern Rock to be nationalised. Surprise, surprise! As Darling has a mortgage with them is this not a conflict of interest. Will not the bankrupt Labour Party's problems now be -----------------------------------------------------------------solved?

salieri

Prompted by Austin Barry's thoughtful contributions, I think a proper debate is called for on whether erections in a nudist colony are, in point of fact, inevitable - I would have thought otherwise but he speaks with obvious authority.

CHRIS WYTE

HALF A LOAF IS BETTER THAN NONE. THE GOVERMENT SHOULD HAVE LET THEM HAVE IT. WHAT A SHAMBLES. DARLING SHOULD GO GO GO GO GO OH AND MAKE SURE HE PAYS HIS PAYMENTS BEFORE HE GORS

Max Kaye

I assume that when Yvette is asked whether there was a plot against Darling, she replies: "Balls!".

chris whyte

HAVE THE OTHER BANKS GOT ENOUGH MONEY TO COVER ACCOUNTS?????????????????????????????

dave dockerill

with the kind of rates the rock is paying, ,people will be qeueing to put their money in!

Chris

Chris Whyte, STOP SHOUTING! Go read a website on netiquette, please.

salvatore

Most people probably saw this coming.
Brown and Darling have been best placed to evaluate all relevant information for up to 6 months.
Will someone from the press please ask an obvious question.
If Brown and Darling are confident about their decision, they should be anxious to reassure the markets etc, that they will be accountable for subsequent events.
So, what measurable and plain targets have they set, by which everyone can gauge the effectiveness of their management of the Rock.
In other words, are they accountable or not.

I expect this is too difficult a question for the press to ask, which is a pity considering the amount of taxpayers of money which has been appropriated.

salvatore

Most people probably saw this coming.
Brown and Darling have been best placed to evaluate all relevant information for up to 6 months.
Will someone from the press please ask an obvious question.
If Brown and Darling are confident about their decision, they should be anxious to reassure the markets etc, that they will be accountable for subsequent events.
So, what measurable and plain targets have they set, by which everyone can gauge the effectiveness of their management of the Rock.
In other words, are they accountable or not.

I expect this is too difficult a question for the press to ask, which is a pity considering the amount of taxpayers of money which has been appropriated.

Harry Osbourne

Why does the Govt consider that it has to buy into failures, surely it should spend our money on success? Let's nationalise the City!

Harry Osbourne

I believe the only way to ensure the proper and profitabile management of the new Northern Rock Dept of (failed but may recover) Banks is to appoint A retired labour Front Bencher as Chair. What about John Prescott? Come get your third Jag here! Bring a son or call a friend! But, please don't appoint any old Darling!

David Lindsay

Nationalisation is not a party point. Labour and the Tories have both done it repeatedly, and it is the Tories whose record in this regard is more uniformly successful. Admittedly, they have used the device much less frequently. But their nationalisation of electricity was a great success, and their nationalisation of Rolls Royce was a triumph in the long term.

However, if the money can now be found to nationalise Northern Rock, then it should be found to renationalise the railways (which only make a profit at all because of guaranteed public subsidies – give that a moment to sink in) and the rip-off utilities. But I hope that the Government will turn Northern Rock back into the locally rooted mutual building society that it used to be in happier times.

There are those who regret the failure of the Attlee Government to honour the 1945 Manifesto pledge to nationalise the land and the clearing banks. I don’t. But if there had been any chance of the subsequent implementation of Chestertonian Distributism on the land and mutualisation of the banks in the Forties, then I would.

Might there be any such chance today? After all, just listen to the fearful wailing of those who had thought that they had banished civil society, acting as the democratic State, from economic life, but who now see it coming back with a vengeance because nothing else works. As someone once put it, “A new day has dawned, has it not?”

Well, has it?

David Lindsay

Nationalisation is not a party point. Labour and the Tories have both done it repeatedly, and it is the Tories whose record in this regard is more uniformly successful. Admittedly, they have used the device much less frequently. But their nationalisation of electricity was a great success, and their nationalisation of Rolls Royce was a triumph in the long term.

However, if the money can now be found to nationalise Northern Rock, then it should be found to renationalise the railways (which only make a profit at all because of guaranteed public subsidies – give that a moment to sink in) and the rip-off utilities. But I hope that the Government will turn Northern Rock back into the locally rooted mutual building society that it used to be in happier times.

There are those who regret the failure of the Attlee Government to honour the 1945 Manifesto pledge to nationalise the land and the clearing banks. I don’t. But if there had been any chance of the subsequent implementation of Chestertonian Distributism on the land and mutualisation of the banks in the Forties, then I would.

Might there be any such chance today? After all, just listen to the fearful wailing of those who had thought that they had banished civil society, acting as the democratic State, from economic life, but who now see it coming back with a vengeance because nothing else works. As someone once put it, “A new day has dawned, has it not?”

Well, has it?

richard j

Corporals acting as Officers - what do you expect. Get rid of this unelected and totally incompetent governement.

john problem

This whole Northern Rock stuff is very encouraging to me. I am going to change my OAP status to that of a bank. My wife will become a share-holder, so that when we are starving to death - because of the poverty of our pension and prices rising everywhere - the government can nationalise me and compensate my share-holding wife. I commend it to all OAPs and indeed to anybody who has been a bit profligate and is feeling the pinch. Become a bank!

mart

HMG had already nationalised the risk, it was high time they also nationalised the attendant rewards. So this latest move is a good one, in my opinion.

The Morning Post

And so having plowed in excess of fifty five billion pounds of taxpayers cash into this small mismanaged business in the New Labour heartland of the North East, all Brown/Darling have to do now is to find another idiot, much like them, to pay us the same amount of money for it! About as likely as preventing an erection in a nudist camp in my limited experience! I reckon we can kiss goodbye to around 75% of our current investment, which when added to the loss Brown incurred UK taxpayers by selling gold at an all time low when it recently hit an all time high, is some record for someone who claims to be a fiscal genius! He sure got rid of boom and bust preferring bust and bust instead!

Thought Generator

The nationalisation of Northern Rock should begin a period of good news for Labour. The stealing of Britains largest building societies from mutual members so that the Tories in the City could benefit from the generated profits was a Tory dream. This may be the start of a great downturn in that dream. I hope enough citizens put a positive face on the nationaisation because at last we have a "Peoples Bank". Alister your my Darling Keep it up. Try trains and busses and oil and electricity and gas and water etc., etc., etc.,

David Lindsay

Why did my comment appear twice, with different times? I only posted it once, at the first time. Still, at least the lines between the paragraphs got in.

Austin Barry

Salieri, I defer to your expertise on the subject of failed erections, but really, this NR fiasco does reveal politicians to be impotent by-standers, much as, as my old chum Malcolm Muggeridge used to say, the pianist in a brothel.

Craig J

Now that the Tax-payer has ownership of Northern Rock through its cash injection via the UK Government, would it not be a good idea to set up a panel to oversee the banks prime objective so that risky investments do not occur at the expense of the tax-payer? As regards the longer term employees and the loss of their jobs, they ought to be in line for a settlement proposal and first refusal in their jobs once the bank is re-floated and/or sold. For other employees, they could be integrated into other high street banks as new employees where possible, after all they possess the skills necessary. If Northern Rock is sold off it would be pretty unfair for the taxpayer to come out with nothing. With this in sight I'd propose a retention of the percentage of the profit upon a sale go to the UK Government for its lending service. This could be divided to aid causes in the UK that need the money. It just an idea.