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Northern Rock

The Chancellor will recall that I supported his guaranteeing deposits last autumn, although he did it three or four days too late. However, it seemed to me and most other people that the only case for nationalisation was through an orderly run-down of the bank, with the sale of the loan book, as and when the markets permitted, to get decent value for the taxpayer. If it is genuinely business as usual and if the bank is to remain open and take deposits, why should not every sane saver in this country rush to take their savings out of other banks and saving institutions to put them into the only institution that offers competitive rates of interest, fully backed up by the Bank of England? What would that do for the reputation of the financial services industry in this country? How much profit does the Chancellor expect to make eventually out of the extraordinary venture?