Darling has offered an incentive for chicanery

Imagine the scene at around 10 p.m. last Thursday night in the private apartments at Buckingham Palace. It could well have been past normal bedtime for the Queen and Prince Philip, but they were sitting up — perhaps aided by a scotch and water or some camomile tea — waiting so that Her Majesty could give gracious assent to the Banking (Special Provisions) Bill, then being rushed through the Commons.

The Queen no longer actually signs Acts of Parliament. Instead she puts her ‘sign manual’ on Letters Patent, which serves the same legal purpose of transforming a Bill into law. Even so, one cannot help feeling that this truncated ceremony was still a sort of rebuke to the Prime Minister. Its continued existence must surely get on his nerves — and never more so than on this occasion, when his economic policy was in tatters and a well-attended House of Commons was waiting for the Queen to do her constitutional duty.

The assistant private secretary, Doug King, entered clutching the papers, and told Her Majesty that a special messenger from the Treasury was waiting downstairs. As she raised her pen, the Queen must have recalled all the previous nationalisation bills brought before her by Labour governments — for the car industry, shipping and the mines — and remembered what bad pieces of legislation those turned out to be. ‘Hmm,’ she might have thought, ‘first time I’ve had to assent to the nationalisation of a bank.’

Of course, the reason she has never assented to such a unique Bill before is that banks are special. Yet I have not seen it explained clearly why the seizure of Northern Rock is so dangerous. So forgive me if I have a go.

The immediate consequences of this fiasco will probably be slightly higher taxes, as the government scrambles to find the money to pay for its City advisers’ fees and any Northern Rock liabilities not covered by assets.