The powers to be want to stand on their own and run the country and all businesses by not copying the US.
Should have stayed out of Iraq and Afghanistan and concentrate at home. Charity begins at home.
Why subsidise third world's, all that amount of money would have easily bailed out this problem

Dominic Lim, liverpool , UK

Why can't the govt buy the debt and the banks pay the interest, so the banks has the liquid cash to continue its business, and govt takes the surplus profits to offset the debt.
Why can't banks offer a higher interest rate to secure more depositors to continue functioning?

Dominic Lim, liverpool , UK

I am writing all these emails cos I am peeved that news media and so called finance analysts can make or break a company.
Go and write about follow up of Iraq invasion or occupation of afghanistan, print the actual amount of money wasted there and truely inform the public what UK benefited.

Dominic Lim, liverpool , UK

If the bank is nationalised, does this mean the poor old tax payer takes the burden and risk, meanwhile all debtors are paid in full, and the shareholders start making absurd claims about the value of the company which results in even more taxpayer expense??

Surely its better to let it go bust???

Ben, Shanghai,

Would the takeover by Santander be such a great idea, given that levels of service at Abbey seemed to deteriorate after its takeover by Sant..?The business section of a certain daily reported that half of the complaints it had about financial institutions were about Abbey.

susie, London, UK

What a shame that the B&B board turned down Clive Cowdery's £400 milion investment offer back in June, when the shares stood at arounb 85p - here was a chance to rationalise the then struggling smaller end of the banking sector. Did I say shame; I meant arrogant, bordering on criminally negligent

chris, ealing,

Truly disgusting.

The Labour government are abhorrent. Every day that passes that we don't get the opportunity to vote these imbeciles out of office is a day wasted.

How much more damage can they be allowed to do to our country before they inevitably get kicked out of office?

Mark, Basingstoke,

With the government taking ownership of failing financial institutions and their dodgy loans, how long will it be before the country is itself declaired bankrupt?

Gareth Jones, Dusseldorf, Germany

I thought B&B was well capitalised with credit lines arranged into 2009. Who have they upset or are they just the sacred cow being slaughtered to show post the Labour conference (and take attention off the Tory conference) that Brown is "action man"?

Richard, Newton Abbot,

The government is happy to use taxpayers money to support the irresponsible banks by taking their dud mortages into public ownership.
But what about the pension funds and insurance co's who have bought these same mortages bundled up and sold as investment grade income bonds ?

Peter Hooper, Windsor, UK

How's this for an example of the 'Great' British banking system: Barclays Bank, on a regular basis, keep sending me various bank account details, ie, credit cards and pin no's even though I tell them they don't live at this address. What is the rest of their system like? 'Great' banking!

Terry Amos, Leicester, Leicestershire

A couple of years ago the banks were whinging about having to peg back their fees for late payers etc. They complained to the Ombudsman that customers needed to be responsible with credit. Clearly the same doesn't apply to Directors of Banks. They should all be prosecuted & barred from business.

Paul C, Harlow, England (Not EU)

100% immoral.

Brown says he wants the end of irresponsibility. So let B&B face up to their responsibility alone.

These are shareholder-owned companies. They take the upside, why this govt obsession with protecting them - and homeowners from the downside?

Responsibility Brown. Let them fail.

Laura Roberts, London, UK

"... profit in the longterm for gov't nonetheless"

Jo, Newton Abbot, England

It is my understanding the gov't is not in business for profit. Politicians maybe, but if its a government by the people for the people...

M.O., London, United Kingdom

The break Up.

Giving the best bits to the city (deposits) and giving the
worst bits (bad loans) to the tax payer.

This is fiction, surely.

Not even the Tories are that right of centre.

M Walker, Bromsgrove, Worcs

"A secure home... Mr. Bradford"

"...For wasting other peoples money, Mr. Bingley"

Sonny B, Newcastle , UK

Shame the board rejected Resolution's £400 million investment proposal back in June with an SP at 85p. they blew an opportunity for B&B to be at the forefront of a major rationalisation of the smaller end of the banking sector, supposedly in the shareholders' interests. Some might call it negligence

chris, ealing,

Interesting isn't it? As well as paying rent to the people who have bid them out of the housing market by lying on their interest only mortgage applications, the honest tenant now gets the pleasure of funding the downside risk as the Government steps in waving our money about....

Damien, Moncengladbach, Germany

Brainwave! Let's nationalize all the banks operating in Britain and put them under Bank of England control. Must be better all round, except for the fat cats.

R Lindsey, Chesterfield, UK

So much for the financial services industry keeping us all in gainful employment. Perhaps we should all return to making things and exporting them to others. Oh .. yes I forgot .. we can't because we do not havr the factories any more, we let them all go to China and India. Look like we are doomed.

Joe, Geelong, Expat in Australia

The Uptick Rule is to blame for all this, and most of your readers wil never have heard of it.

john ellis, london, uk

let it sink, natural death of these failing institutions will shorten the pain. Wont it?

Jonny, Fleet, UK

Abbey are only taking the savings since they need the cash themseleves and can't go to the capital markets. The loans stay with the Treasury. Abbey will take an option to buy the loans later. A sweetener to let the HBOS Lloyds deal through without legal action.

Michael, London,

If it's true that this is going to cost the UK taxpayer £150bn, then that is getting towards half of what World War 2 cost Britain (which was £340bn in today's money/£20.5bn at 1945 rates). This is unbelievable.

Robert, Manchester, UK

Think you have to note that, Northern Rock
( credit crunch ) and B&B ( bad buytolet ) ,
are actually different problems.

B&B seems a more of a reflection of our economy.

Recession guaranteed now, I think.

M Walker, Bromsgrove, Worcs.

If the Treasury pay £2 a share for B&B it would cost under £3billion,underpin the price of all banks, preventing a repeat of this next month
If we have to throw tax money at this, pay off B&B and Northern Rock shareholders,avoid litigation,clear liabilities
Pay in other bank shares,some will stick

Mike Heaney, Cornwall,

The question the people of UK have to ask is 'Why is this Labour government bailing out another private bank'. Whose interest do they have at heart? The tax-payer or the 'buy-to-let' speculators. Obviously not the tax-payer. All we see are taxes,taxes,more taxes and stealth taxes.

Louis, Liverpool, UK

Why should we foot the bill? Just say no! Where were the banks when my business needed help a few years ago? No help and no support then. Let them all go bust. Serve them all right. We'll get by without them. Good riddance to bad rubbish.

Clive Dudley, Plymouth, UK,

The real scandal behind all this that the banks shareholders have also been robbed because the board of directors have not been fit for the purpose of stewardship for shareholders. funds. They risked all due to the bonus scheme, and the accountants did not declare the huge risk.

John, London,

I pulled out out savings in July because it was obvious which way B&B was heading. It was doing a Northern Rock. The B&B board should be ashamed of themselves for the way they have handled affairs in the past 12 months - little transparency and an amatuer feel towards the whole shooting match.

Ron Wain , Fordingbridge, Hants

100% immoral.

Leave the market alone. It's working perfectly well as long as government keeps its interventionist nose out of it.

Laura Roberts, London, UK

After this they had better start making plans to sort out the Royal Bank of Scotland - watching the Formula 1 race in Singapore with the course festooned with their adverts - at enormous cost.
Who gives these "bankers" permission to chuck other peoples' hard earned cash around? RBS = Nat West too!

james allen, manchester, england

The Halifax, B&B and Northern Rock are ex-Building Societies. Alliance & Leicester and Abbey are also ex-Building Societies that had to be rescued by the Spanish. It is unlikely any of these would be in trouble if they were still Building Societies because BS rules ban many risky activities.

Ian, Buckingham, UK

So the have-a-go landlords bought all the properties and pushed the mortgages out of reach so I had to rent off him, and then he put my home up for sale! Now he keeps his unearned profit and I have to pay for it. Emmigration was my only choice! Thanks Mr.Brown, serves me right for not being greedy

PaulBG, Paphos, Cyprus

any mutual would be mad to demutualise now. mine the Nationwide seems sound- touch wood. the Northern Rock legislation left room for another collapse/takeover- so someone plainly knew this was coming- who?

peter c, Devizes, Wessex

Looks like a so called Labour Government are prepared to bail out commerce but not industry -remember how Tony & Gordon rushed up to (be seen to) try and 'save' Rover, not that long ago?

Labour inherited & embraced privatisation.
Will the Conservatives embrace a nationalised inheritance?

FlipFlop!

Graham, Leamington Spa, UK

Richard, Alicante

That's socialism for you. Probably a reason why you left.

Gareth Jones, Dusseldorf, Germany

Fred,

Despite what you read and knee jerk reactions. The deposit accounts are liabilities (ie money owed by the company) and the loans are the assets (ie money owed to the company). So they are selling off the liabilities, but nationalising the assets! The tax payers wins!

jim, Gloucester,

Mismanagement is not a crime (yet). What is certainly needed is regulation of remuneration of bankers earning over a certain threshold, under which such earnings can be clawed-back if the basis on which such earnings were made (normally "profit" recorded front by the bank) later proves to be wrong.

Nigel, London,

100% immoral.

Should be 100% illegal.

Pure and utter theft. Leave the free market alone. It is working perfectly. Let B&B fail.

Laura Roberts, London, UK

How does this benefit the taxpayer? Is it because Bradford is another Labour stronghold just like the Newcastle and the Norther Rock nationalisation was.

steve tea, manchester, cheshire

I noticed Yvette Cooper falling back on the old Zanulabour mantra by bleating "it's the right thing to do". I think if another Zanulabour minister says that one more time I shall SCREAM
repetition does not make a statement true but that is worth repetition and it is true.

peter c, Devizes, Wessex

Don't mess about any more Gordon. Use the powers you can apply to any suspected criminal activities and sieze the assets of not just the banks themselves but also of all directors/senior management until they can satisfy the electorate that they were innocent of any mismanagement.
Do it now.

A.M. Williams, Stafford,

Perhaps Britannia Building Society or another major Building Society will ''remutualise'' the savings side of B&B 's business. Then those shareholders of B&B who have stuck with the company since demutualisation will have gone full circle!

Phil, London,

Typical labour policy of an outgoing government is to saddle the public purse with so much debt that it will take the new incoming government at least 10 years to bring it back into profitability. At which stage Labour will be back in power. Labour should be forced to come good with the debt.

Callum Alban, Liverpool, UK

Once again the prudent saver and the worker will have to pay for the stupidity of the feckless and profligate borrowers and spenders by increased taxation (yes, even more, seems impossible doesn't it?) and by reduced interest on their savings. Stupidity is rewarded and sense is punished yet again.

Richard, Alicante, Spain

B & B, Northern Rock, Halifax, were once upon a time mutual societies. Obviously, the short-sighted experiment turning these once Great institutions into money grabbing banks has failed.
Surely the answer lays in re-mutualisation.
Lets bring back the building societies!

Owen, London, UK

Where are the previous profits from taking on these risky loans? Distributed to shareholders.
Who should now reap the cost of the losses on these risky loans? The shareholders who were happy to take the profits/dividends in the good times.
No one has yet convinced me why the government need to.

Mike, Edinburgh,

Sam, could you enlighten me as to which countries we have invaded in the 'war on nationalisation'?

matt, nottingham, england

Let Bradford and Bingley die.
Bail out the depositors not the shareholders.

Immorality from a morally bankrupt "Socialists"

Looking for a job in the city are we - in only 2 years time?

Pat, Coromandel, NZ

Bank should go bank rupt , every time i read about the government bail out multi millionaires server time over from their own stupid mistakes it just makes me want to vote BMP, I am sick to death of the government making the rich richer and then when the y make mistakes making them richer again!

MR W Jones, Liverpool, England

Who trusts Labour the party of bankruptcy and bank nationalisation?

Richard , Nottingham,

Bruin simply cannot shake off his current bout of hand-to-glum-face-disease. lets see to whom it spreads. tis a political thermometer methinks

peter c, Devizes, Wessex

So private ownership is the best way. Why then the need to nationalise these failing businesses? And when profitable again sell them back to those who made the mess in the first place.
Should we not nationalise profitable companies such as the leading supermarkets.
Perhaps Marx was right.

roy ormond, skipton, uk

Why dont they just liquidate it?

That way the bondholders who took the risk have to pay the losses, and not the taxpayer.

Bond Investing in banks appears to be risk free in the UK, and that is dangerous for the financial system.

Dave, London,

If BB directors now get fat pay offs we shall all the sickened.

M Reid, Northampton,

It is amazing to see, The World has now actually 'GONE WEST', and we all know what 'gone west' means.

This turmoil is a result of 'WESTERN MATERIALISM', WANT, WANT, WANT, AND THEN WANT SOME MORE.

A system based purely on GREED/IGNORANCE.

The funny thing is, very few are actually EVER happy.

Andrew, Haworth, England

Have to agree with Dominic, once this mess settles down we need to look at business and corporations aiming for slower longer term growth with profits of say millions as opposed to billions each year. That way when we hit these downward cycles the damage will be easier to control

rob, southampton, uk

Wake up Britain. Look around. Is this what you want? Is this the Britain, the England, you want? NewLabor have driven Britain into an Orwellian nightmare - move back to what made the British Empire so great so long ago. Freedom to succeed, freedom to fail. In failure learn. In success teach. Freedom

Oliver Wrathall, Normanton, Australia

Northern Rock - where now govt admits a year later it far underestimated the exposure. It is only about an illusion of confidence by pretending all is under control - it is not - property is 50% overvalued in UK and 30% in US. Correction will be short or long, either way it is now coming fast.

graham topp, toulouse, france

I am speechless when I consider the number of times the UK and USA have invaded foreign countries and overthrown democratic governments who committed the "crime" of nationalizing their assets - the tired old cliche about the hypocrisy of the West is actually true

Sam, New Jersey,

Britain is not called "Great" because of it's supposed past prowess in the financial, political or other any other field. I understand "Great" is a geographical term, something like " Greater", to differentiate big Britain from little Brittany, both of which were once ruled by the English monarchy.

Jim Hughes, Colombo, Sri Lanka

"Who loses, who gains?" Why Fred,,, easy. As usual, the executives of these corporations/banks etc gain and we suckers, the public, end up paying. Simple isn't it?

Isa Manteqi, Kuala Lumpur,

Sorry, please help a novice.
If nothing is done to bail out B&B - what happens?
Who loses, who gains?

Fred, Edinburgh,

No wonder that Bush, Blair and Brown are buddies now. They have all ruined their countries!

Peter, Liverpool, UK

The "Great" should stay because the British are creative and adaptable. We are playing to our strengths. HSBC, Vodafone and Standard Chartered are very strong in emerging markets. France is strong in nuclear power generation so it makes sense that they help the UK rebuild its capability.

Tim Marsh, Hong Kong, China

Why doesn't the gov't simply take on the subprime packages, ditch Buy to Let guys, reduce/fix the interest for the others & give longer to pay. Genuine folks don't want to lose their homes and would probably welcome such a deal. Less obscene profit but profit in the longterm for gov't nonetheless

Jo, Newton Abbot, England

in 10 years BB wont be Bradford and Bingley it will be the British Bank. it will end up like the nhs and become 1 of the holy cows to all the lefties. they will turn it into some kind of great fair insitution that bails out everybody whose homes are being repossesed.
unlikely, but not surprising.

will, grimsby, uk

Ok so having exercised prudence in refusing to join the insanity of the residential property bubble I am now, as a taxpayer saddled with their preposterous loan book ? This is not just ridiculous this is inflammatory. Losses must be paid by a surtax on landlords profits not by the likes of me.

john p-t, Reigate,

Germany and France owns much of our energy supply. Spain owns a chunk of banking. Iceland and the East are into the High Street. China and India own much of the manufacturing industries.

Time to drop the 'Great' from Britain.

MarkS, Leeds,

BB was starting to work out, so there is temporary set back on bad mortgages, but properties still remain. Losses is just paper exercise, why not become a massive property owner and collect rent instead even if less than loan repayment, half a loaf is better than none.

Dominic Lim, liverpool , UK

It is one thing to bail out B&B but the notion that state aid (the purchase of bad debt) should be given to all UK banks is absurd. Banks should pass on their funding costs- shareholders and depositers are bearing all of the banks' risk and borrowers none. This would be a return to a normal market.

J Keynes, London,

Where has all the profits gone from the good years?
Maybe BB wants to consider becoming a landlord.
Maybe if there are no scrupulous traders and so-called finance rating agencies BB may not be in this situation, okay it was badly managed so's many others.
USA sneezes and everyone catches a cold

Dominic Lim, liverpool , UK

Why need foreign banks to take over. There is enough billionaires in UK to do just that if they form a powerful billionaires club.
So where is richard branson now.
How is it football clubs can lose money hand over fist and still continue year on and on

Dominic Lim, liverpool , UK

The Spanish banking system is regulated to prevent high exposure to bad loans. Presumably, Santander have a smaller book of potentially toxic loans to worry about, so have a greater liquidity. However, I expect Santander will only take B&B if they are protected from the B&B's own toxic loans.

Tim, Edinburgh,

old Bruin back on his knees to the moneybags I see. I guess we have used up all the sick bags- some one pass me one if we have any left

peter c, Devizes, Wessex

Where is the morals of banks. Why aren't they happy with just making a small profit, why do they need to pay massive bonuses and pay packets?
Where does the blame end? Govt or regulatory authority?
No it is each for themselves that was the cause of the problem.

Dominic Lim, liverpool , UK

But who is underwriting Santander, given that Spain is bankrupt as well? The ECB perhaps?

Paul, Coventry,