Nationalised Bank

[gillian17]

Can anyone remember the last time a bank was nationalised before Northern Rock?
Certainly not in Britain for 250 years.
Perhaps in Zimbabwe or Franco's Spain, Hitler's Germany.
Is Alistair Darling going to be the first government minister to commit suicide on Jeremy Kyle?
Or is he going to do the honourable thing and shoot his boss, who incidently has stolen £2.5 trillion.
Connection or coincidence? Possibly I do not know.

[orkneylass]

Alastair Darling is so out of his depth it is beyond belief. So who is pullinmg his strings and then shrugging his shoulders when it does not work out? Poor guy, at least he is loyal enough to take the fall every time!

[gillian17]

Loyalty is not a quality I like to see in a Chancellor, actually I do not like Chancellors, they are like debt collectors. "Give me your money, ALL OF IT"

[percy toboggan]

The taxpayers liabilities here are now of staggering proportions. I'd rathe rthis (I think) than some eager entrepreneur like Branson make a killing, largely at our expense. This will all end in tears as everything this Government does , it tends to cock it up.

Brown reveals his true identity at last eh...a socialist to his boots...not very New Labour is it? Whatever happened to dear old Prudence...she 'went out to play' without her pills it seems....now her expectations are far from great

[Bill Fernie]

Not too many banks seem to have been nationalised in the UK for long time but Wikipedia has very up to the minute listing of companies nationalised -

The following companies were created following the nationalization of one or more companies in the given year:

1875 Suez Canal Company - The Egyptian share in the company was bought out by the British Government.
1916 Liquor Trade - The nationalisation of pubs and breweries in Carlisle, Gretna, Cromarty and Enfield under the State Management Scheme; mainly an attempt to restricting alcohol consumption by armaments factory workers. They scheme was privatised by asset transfer in 1973.[1]
1926 Central Electricity Board introduced under The Electricity (Supply) Act 1926 founded National Grid UK and set up a national standard for electricity supply in the UK.
1927 British Broadcasting Company (a privately owned company) became British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), a public corporation operating under a Royal Charter.
1933 London Transport
1938 Nationalisation of UK Coal Royalties [2]
1939 British Overseas Airways Corporation (BOAC) later to become British Airways (BA) - combining the private British Airways Ltd. and the state owned Imperial Airways
1939 At the outset of WWII, much of British industry was nationalised, firms being returned to their original owners, or other bidders, at some point after the war was over.
1946 British Coal, Bank of England - had had private shareholders who were bought out by the state.
1947 Central Electricity Generating Board, Cable & Wireless was nationalised and became part of the GPO
1948 National rail, water transport, some road haulage, passenger transport and Thomas Cook & Son under the British Transport Commission. Separate elements operated as British Railways, British Road Services, and British Waterways, also National Health Service taking over a mixture of previously Local Authority, private commercial and charitable organisations.
1949 British Gas
1951 Iron and Steel Industry (denationalised by the following Conservative Government) [3]
1967 British Steel
1971 Rolls-Royce (1971) Ltd - The strategically-important aero-engine part of the recently-bankrupt Rolls Royce Limited.
1973 Water companies of England and Wales
1976 British Leyland Motor Corporation - became British Leyland upon nationalization. Privatized in 1986 to British Aerospace.
1977 British Aerospace - combining the major aircraft companies British Aircraft Corporation, Hawker Siddeley and others. British Shipbuilders - combining the major shipbuilding companies including Cammell Laird, Govan Shipbuilders, Swan Hunter, Yarrow Shipbuilders
1997 Docklands Light Railway - John Prescott while trying to deflect demands that Railtrack be renationalised boasted to the 1997 Labour Party Conference that he had nationalised this.[citation needed]
2001 Railtrack - although not nationalised as such the takeover by Network Rail of the railway infrastructure in 2002 following the liquidation of Railtrack, which although not a state owned company has no shareholders and is underwritten by the State. In addition prior to this the government began to make use of a residual shareholding of 0.2% (including voting rights) in Railtrack Group Plc leftover from the original sale. [4]
2008 Northern Rock - announced by Alistair Darling, Chancellor of the Exchequer on 17 February 2007 as a temporary measure. The bank will be run at 'arms length' as a commercial business and sold to a private buyer in the future

From the media
Loans and guarantees now at £55billion by the government.
See BBC http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7249575.stm

[percy toboggan]

I'd not place much import on the pages of Wikipedia to be honest.
As internet sources go it has a poor reputation.

Scanning the list it seems fairly accurate to my knowledge but I'd never place even 90% faith in Wikipedia.

[j4bberw0ck]

Errr.... what will never happen, golach?

[MadPict]

Never mind - this latest bit of news will cheer you all up........

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=515248&in_page_id=1770

[j4bberw0ck]

Now that's the Daily Mail doing what it does best; whipping up the Little Englanders to a salivating, rolling-eyed frenzy.

Sharia bonds don't wear burq'aas and don't behead infidels; they don't call bond holders to prayer loudly at 7 in the morning (or whenever) and they don't stone adulterers to death.

Instead of paying interest, the bonds pay interest interest dressed up as something else. In other words, a fee on maturity to cover "expenses", or some other way of letting those Muslims who wish to, make a profit on lending money without calling it interest. I mean, to me, that's a bit like a Muslim being able to eat pig if he or she calls it something else - say "cat". Everyone knows what it is but because you don't actually use the "p" word, that's alright then. Religion, eh? No insult to anyone's intelligence there.......

You can already get Sharia mortgages and loans in the UK. They're successfully regulated by UK law. Sharia bonds? Why not? Has anyone failed to notice that much of the world's oil wealth is concentrated (unfortunately) in Muslim hands?

[Countryman]

Well it has got off to good start, a new chief executive appointed by the Prime Minister- how many of the "Banks" staff are to be made redundant to pay for his salary £90,000 a month yes a month. Is it jobs for the boys, will he be making a contribution to the Labour party.

[percy toboggan]

[quote=j4bberw0ck;341373]Now that's the Daily Mail doing what it does best; whipping up the Little Englanders to a salivating, rolling-eyed frenzy.

quote]

You mis-represent a good newspaper, the vast majority of its readership, and a state of high emotion jibberwocker.

From what I know of 'frenzy's', they do not involve 'eye rolling' at all.
More of a mad stare.

'Eye rolling' is more indicative of resigned frustration....which is what the Daily Mail tends to generate on a regular basis. I'm five foot ten by the way, so hardly 'little' in anyones book. Along with most of the Mail's readers I am undeniably English though so you got summat right.

[scorrie]

Have you ever read as much rubbish as this statement concerning Northern Rock:-

"It is thought that RAB and SRM believe at least 400p a share represents the book value of the company."

Oh aye, this would be those same shares that closed at 90p last Friday!!

Then you read this and it all becomes clear:-

"SRM Global and RAB Capital, the bank's largest shareholders which together own around 19 per cent of the lender, are certain to pursue legal action unless they receive what they deem a fair price."

Well, who forced them to invest?

"The two hedge funds are understood to have paid around £150 million for their Northern Rock holdings, much of which was invested after the bank's troubles began last autumn."

I hope they get hee haw. Would they have shared that profits with us if it had gone the other way?

[j4bberw0ck]

You mis-represent a good newspaper

Excuse me. My sense of humour is getting the better of me. The Daily Mail is hardly a good newspaper; not on any measurable basis. I repeat my charge of Little Englanders. I notice you didn't take issue with my summary of Islamic bonds; just my views on the caustic heap of daily rubbish published by idiots and bought by ...... oh sorry, Percy.

As for the shareholders and depositors; more than anything else, the Northern Rock fiasco convinces me that Gordon Brown was preparing to announce an election. He'd just come to power and the country was ecstatic of a wave of "wow! It's not Blair!" and he reckoned he'd go for a snap election to grab another 5 years.

Then Northern Rock - and pictures of little old ladies queueing round the block to get their savings out. At that point it's panic! All hands to the pumps! Anything,any promise AT ALL to leave the One Eyed Bandit looking good. Guarantees to shareholders! Guarantees to depositors! Anything at all!!

The whole lot should have been allowed to collapse. Depositors protected to £35000, and shareholders allowed to go to the wall, which is the way it's supposed to be with shareholders. You get the dividends and increasing share price in the good times, and the losses in the bad times.

The whole thing is a nonsense. Shareholders in NR can go boil their heads for all of me; that's how it works in the real world.

As it is, every one of us reading this is in for thousands of pounds - whether we want to be, or not. And why? Because Gordon Brown wanted to have an election and be Prime Minister for another 5 years. How does it feel to have paid billions for the sake of that corrupt, desperate, incompetent barsteward's ambition, as we head into a recession with the country's credit cards maxxed out because the fool poured money he didn't have into failed enterprises like Government controlled health, and Government controlled education?

Lamp-post; rope; politician. Some assembly required.