If t is a weekday, there must be an injection of public money into the banking system. The government is going to take a majority stake in Royal Bank of Scotland and a roughly 40 percent stake in the bank to be formed from the merger being Lloyds TSB and HBOS. This move will require an outlay of up to £37 billion of taxpayer money. On the Today programme, Alistair Darling was unwilling to say whether this would be the last intervention that was needed or what the time scale for selling off the stakes that the government is taking is.
It does, though, seem that Barclays has been able to raise £6.5bn without taxpayer assistance.
A Euro-Zone bailout plan is expected to be announced later today and that combined with coordinated central bank lending could begin to finally calm the markets.
PS Do read this New York Times piece which does a good job of fact-checking
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