Absolutely endorse and support Libby Purvis's original piece.

Personally as both a "grey" investor and saver I was at sixes and sevens trying to decide what to do especially since my wife was having fits trying to arrange postal withdrawal for her own life savings.

With HMG eventually stepping-in and belately BOE some degree of equilibrium was restored we decided to ride out the storm and leave the status quo.

Spent considerable time on the web(Sat-Sun) @ NR's site attempting to get some meaningful information only to be faced initially with the CEO's soothing statement on all its national/intenational sites.

Only after delving much deeper into the shareholders area of NR was I able to listen in to a recorded conference-call held between the NR CEO/Finance Director and 20 or so City reps.and hear some meaningful dialogue was I able to advise some caution in my own household.

Sorry to say the whole saga seems to have been hyped-up once again by the media and the politicians.

Peter R Copeland, Llandudno, N-Wales UK

1. Dis-invent banks.
2. Give no guarantees of unemployment pay to those ex bankers on the dole
3. Foreclose on their houses rapidly and sell them to their ex customers who had been swindled
4. Stop borrowing
5. Live with your in-laws or somebody else
6. Do not employ ex-bankers
7. Get rid of 50% of civil servants and government
and so on

gordon, mexico, mexico

How naive can you be. The Heading should read: 'The queuers blow a huge raspberry at the political industry and its financial masters'

This whole thing has ultimately been organised by the banks over a number of years. Being the only industry allowed to trade insolvent, its no suprise that the bigger banks will consolidate their hold over us.

Roger, Epping,

in a city of no rules they forgot the rules of the street trust no one with your money.people power has brought a chill to politcians but a security net to the money blenders of the city.

michael joseph heavey, cahersiveen>adams towns, madness

Spot on Libby! I almost took pity on little old NR until I saw Applegarth's cheesy photo on their website and quickly realised that if anyone would be looking after number one it would be the CEOs and directors of these financial institutions. I feel more than justified in doing the same.

James, Wimbledon, UK

Oh dear Lord. Have you all thought about this? Really? Seriously? You've sat down and considered all the facts, and genuinely believe a headless panic rush is the most astute way to deal with the situation? I hope that's not true, for your sakes.
A bank facing a temporary liquidity crisis, while a serious issue, is not anything critical. Northern Rock was and remains a perfectly viable business. There is no suggestion that it would run out of money, it had merely approached the BoE to gain liquidity relief from the fallout of the American subprime market.
The reason this is UK-specific is that both the American and European central banks flooded their markets with liquidity - in effect, giving ALL their banks the sort of liquity relief that the BoE gave just one institution. And do you see hoards of Americans/Europeans queuing outside their banks? No.

If I told you that Tesco only stocks enough food for 2 weeks, would you rush there to panic buy... Oh, you've gone already.

John Tee-Rhodes, Manchester,

Who of us hasn’t seen the pictures of city traders behind their computer terminals bulk-selling like mad things at the veriest whiff of rumour? Yet when a financial organisation has to go begging cap-in-hand for emergency funds and we reassign our life savings to a more secure steward we’re accused of pig-ignorance. Perhaps, while they’re deriding our naiveté the financial gurus might find a moment to explain something else: we’re told the root cause of the credit crunch was too-cheap money; to correct this crisis they advocate lowering the interest rates (or, in America’s case, they instantly slash them by 0.5%) – so the wise solution seems to be quick, let’s make money cheaper. I give up.

Taylorfrance, Antonne, France

To a non-British person such as I, this entire episode involving Northern Rock and its customers/savers seems like something out of the movies. Specifically, the run by customers on the Fidelity Fiduciary Bank shown in "Mary Poppins" comes to mind. I had assumed until now that such a run by customers on a UK bank was only confined to "reel life", and could never happen in real life.

Northern Rock's savers cannot be blamed for their suspicions and actions. After all, they have put away money saved from earnings after paying income tax. The interest paid on those savings is also taxed. To add the final insult, not all their savings are "protected". Under such punitive and risky circumstances, there appears to be little incentive for a common person in the UK to save money with banks. So, they are perfectly justified in taking their money elsewhere, or not saving any money at all, if a bank is unable to manage their savings in a responsible manner.

John E. F. O'Reigner, Wirral, England

Northern Rock's 'speculative' business model has come unstuck because of a breakdown in trust between financial institutions. Inter-bank lending has ground to a halt - due to unkown exposure to dodgy debts. Banks don't trust each other, yet expect their customers to trust them? And sniff haughtily at the sign of 'panic'. Their 'panic' at refusing inter-bank lending to Northern Rock is 'rational' but the 'panic' of the public is not? The public have lost trust in the probity and respectibility of the British Banking System. The 'higher-paid help' at the Bank of England should reflect on that fact, and feel somewhat queasy....

AndyM, Malvern , England

Re the Equitable Life disaster and the soothing spin of politicians: It's worth pointing out that Equitable pensions were very popular with MPs. When it crashed the MPs voted themselves suitable compensation while the rest of we Equitable policy holders were left to swing in the breeze.
A large dose of cynicism/scepticism re the utterings of the political class is well justified!

paul n, sheffield, uk

Bravo! Brilliant! The first non-condescending article in the national press. Indeed people aren't stupid, they realise that the government's assurance was meant to lull them into a false sense of complacency, while all the big investors and banks pulled their money out to Northern Rock. I reckon that this last-gasp announcement by Alistair Darling will not stop this banking run - indeed it might exacerbate it by causing runs on A&L or B&B when all their depositors realise that the govt is now tapped out by this rescue of northern rock and that if A&L or B&B were to get into trouble, there will be no similar help offered to them. Big banks that gamble with small savers money deserve all the grief that they are getting!

IrishEyes, Belfast,