Having watch the excellent programme "dispatches", the buck stops with Brown who set up a ineffective regulatory body who were warn, time and time again, about the sub prime market.
This incompetent person,Brown has been the worst chancellor this country as ever had, and if he had any honour left he would
resign forthwith, along with his puppet Darling.

A Walton, Leicester, England

Surely it is Gordon Brown who should resign. Darling has only been Chancellor for a few months and all that has happened to Northern Rock began under the prevoius regime.
But I don't think that will happen!

Chris, Lake Geneva WI, USA

Chris Thornton, Lake Geneva, WI USA

£90,000 a month??! A typo, surely?

just checking, London,

The rickety, rotten, wooden Chancellor is shoring up the mineshaft that the Prime Minister has dug. If he goes then everything collapses around Gordon's head. So he'll stay.

jj, Cambridgeshire, uk

The US sub-prime market crashed so financial packages that included mortgages weren't selling and there was a decline in the wholesale money market as a result. This in turn meant that Northern Rock ran into trouble because its business plan is essentially dependant on manipulating the (then) almost static wholesale money market and selling the (then) unsellable mortgage packages which until June last year was working extremely well for the Rock. The deathblow was the general quivery of the Rock's account holders that just had to get their money out and make matter worse.

All of this, oddly enough, seems to be Alastair Darling's fault?

Codswallop.

M J Marshall, Lancaster, England

This Brown government is running Northern Rock? It is not a joke. Prepare fo incompetence like the Home Office management of immigration, the HMRC handling of the two disks on child benefit details, MOD equipping the soldiers to fight war in Iraq, etc.. etc.. Northern Rock' solution is not to nationalise, but
leave it alone to market forces to find a solution. Northern Rock will be a rock dangling on the necks of Brown and Darling.

Gerry Scane, LONDON,

Why are shareholders likely to launch a legal challenge. Isn't risk the flip side of large returns from stock market investments? Surley the shares would have been rendered valueless anyway if the government not intervened.

Daniel, Birmingham, UK

There is a really nasty scenario brewing here for the government, and the political damage from it will be severe. That scenario is this:

An individual working for Northern Rock somewhere in the Newcastle area is about to lose their job.

That person has a mortgage with the bank, that they will default on. Their home will be reposessed.

Their life savings will be the shares they had in the company, which are now worthless.

The government, through its negligence, will have forced that person to lose their home, their job and their life savings.

Way to go Labour!

Vaughan Clarke, Higham Ferrers, UK

To Tony Bonds in Erith, Kent ...

You're mortagage contract terms will remain exactly the same as they were before Nationalisation.

Alistair Darling says "the running of the bank would be unaffected by it heading into public hands" ... and ... "Someone with a mortgage with Northern Rock will be at no difference than if they had a mortgage at any other bank or building society."

Toby, Newport, Isle of Wight,

I would remind those who are about to comment that the Northern Rock Board of Directors, and its management team got the bank into trouble by persuing a faulty bussness plan. The government (no matter what colour it was at the time) was left to pick-up the pieces. For me the owners (shareholders) of the Bank should make good any taxpayers losses.

Anthony J, Alton, UK

Why not tell Brown to have an election instead? How can he PREACH to others about democracy, freedoms and all that gobbledegook??

Sunil, Kandy,

The Goverrment intervened in the collapse of Northern Rock in order to stabilize the banking industry. The conduct of Brown and his puppet raises two fundamental points which nobody in the Goverment appears to have considered as a viable option.

1. Why was not the banking industry pressurised to take on the bad debts of one of its members?

2. In order to prevent a recurrence of the incompetent and greedy practices of Northern Rock, why - as with the travel industry - does the industry not create a safety net for any one of its members by creating a fund to help out any member in difficulty?

Northern Rock deserve to have been put out of business with a share out of the assets and liabilities to the UK banking industry in direc t proportion to the profits made be each member.

I have no sympathy with the shareholders. They have enjoyed the profits for many years and must suffer the losses caused by the greed of the board of management that they supported.

Edward Willhoft, Epsom, UK

Whatever it costs to save NR, it won't be as much as the wars in Iraq, either in terms of wasted money and, even more importantly, the waste of young British lives

leila , manchester, uk

Lets remember this problem was caused by the city's
involvement in the sub prime market, the governement
allowed the city to be self regulated and they have failed
through greed, how can you now blame the government
because they are reluctant to hand over Northen Rock
back to the private sector.

Baron Von Pushy , London, England

Mr Darling has a mortgage with Northern Wreck. This info is listed in the register of MPs interests however he does not appear to have declared an interest in any of his verbal statements. The Bank of England should have intervened last Autumn, dismembered the Wreck, and sold it piecemeal to the Big 4 etc. Having watched governments since the days of Alec Home, this one is surely the worst !

Roffey, Vienna,

Its easy to blame someone and pretend that firing them will make things right.

He's caught in a pickle, either NR sinks and taxpayers foot at least 100 billion pound to cover repaying customer deposits or they bail it out at a high cost. Auctioning it off at firesale prices is not a solution, who guarantees that the new owners won't muck things up worse, not to mention new owners would not take on the NR debts which would still be left in the taxpayer hands.

Banks are connected and NR cannot just be allowed to collapse, what about all the loans which NR gave to business and mortgages which would have to be recalled causing a domino collapse? What about the insurance NR underwrote? what about the NR employees who would hit the state up for benefits?

Jack, London,

Darling is taking so much flak all because NR was so grossly mismanaged to the extent that it became effectively bust-nothing whatsoever to do with Darling.Being a shareholder is a tricky game,if you cant afford to lose your money lesson no 1 is -dont play!!
Branson and the others thought they could get a bargain-tough luck guys!
The Conservatives, particularly their shadow chancellor, keep harping on about Darlings resignation.Coming from a party that under Majors mal administration, and the complete imcompetence of that clown Lamont, bringing about the biggest financial disaster the UK has ever known, really is rich!
The Tories have offered no other viable alternative, and of course hindsight is a terrific get out for Osbourne and co.What a bunch of whingers they are, all except Conway of course who is still laughing all the way to his bank [bet it isnt Northern Rock!!]

Iain Chapman, Marciac,

Mr. Darling keeps talking about the credit market conditions returning to normal and the present credit market turmoil. It is clear he does not understand what is happening in the credit markets: it is not a temporary turbulence but a shift where the markets are moving from a situation where the risk of certain types of credit where severely underestimated and underpriced to a situation where these risks are more correctly assessed and priced. The conditions that allowed NR to borrow money at low rates on the overnight market and lend it out as 125% mortgages to risky borrowers won't come back until everybody has forgotten the lessons they are learning now. This forgetting lessons learned will take something like 10 or 20 years.
In the meantime business as usual is not an option at NR. Their business model is as dead as pets.com. Therefore the governement can either wind up NR and keep pumping ever larger amounts of money into it. They will probably do the latter.

Peter, New York,

George Osborne is correct New Labour is done back to being Old Communist Labour that killed the UK in the 70's, with an non elected leader running the country

mohsen, malaga, spain

"This is the Planet Earth calling Mr. G. Brown ! "

"Can you please respond Mr. G. Brown, this is The Planet Earth calling ! "

Jonathan, Manchester,

Why should the bank remain for years in public ownership?

The accounts of the bank can be totted up, and enough capital injected to put it into a similar state to other viable banks. This is taxpayers' money spent on a taxpayers' property. After a few days, the legally-binding guarantee on deposits can be withdrawn, to be replaced with an implict guarantee that government honours its own debts.

Then the shares can be gradually sold off on the stockmarket, until government runs its stake down to nothing, and the taxpayer will get back the injected capital.

It shouldn't take more than a few weeks to establish the bank's true financial position, the refloating operation another few weeks to months.

Malcolm McLean, Bradford, UK

He will continue because Northern Rock shall make a profit within two years and when the markets have picked up.
With a new business model and new business like the distribution of benefits and pensions Norther Rock will be worth around eight pounds per share within four years.

The Director, LONDON, England

No taxpayers money should be used by Northern Rock subsidiaries to buy up repossessed houses. Anyone with a house repossessed by NR should face the same consquences as with other financial institutions and not supported by an artificial floor of THEIR buyers using OUR money.

Tom, London, UK

Tony Bonds of Kent - you will just have to keep paying your mortgage as normal.

Whoever ends up owning Northern Rock will receive your repayments, which will then be used to repay any other debts that the bank has.

In short - I'm sure it will be honoured. In fact, the government is counting on thousands of mortgage holders like you to recoup their "investment"/propping up of Northern Rock.

Jon, London,

If as he says he puts the interest of taxpayers first, he should not have entered into this mess, then the taxpayer would not have been involved. It was his desire to prop up the Nu Lab vote in the north that prompted him to use taxpayers money in this way. Govt revenues (ie taxpayers money) should never be used for speculation, and he has broken yet another golden trust between taxpayer and government. I'm not sure that this government has the ability to run a retail bank. They don't seem to be able to run anything else efficiently. John Romsey

John Keating, Romsey, Hampshire

What is him saving us millions of pounds worth when he has squandered BILLIONS of our pounds already.

Phil, Leeds,

Some of the criticism levelled against the Government here seems unfair.

True, the bank got itself into trouble. True, the shareholders and management deserve no sympathy. But what about the depositors? Particularly those who are retired and cannot work to replenish their savings.

I suspect that if your retired parents had savings in Northern Rock you would be really pleased that the government stopped it from going under. I don't know anyone who had money in the bank but I think the government did the right thing in helping them.

Timi, London,

"We will, and always have, put the interests of taxpayers first," Mr Brown said, facing a barrage of questions at Downing Street.

Actually, Brown was meaning:
"We will, and always have, put the taxpayers' money first".

riccardo, brussels,

New Labour Freeloaders.
If they wanted the Bank they should have paid the prevailing low market price.
In addition, It was only at that low level because of Labour's dithering over the last months.

K Urban, London , UK

Our politicians have shown themselves to be experts in financial management viz Hain Harman Balls Conway ....even the Speaker in fiddling his Air Miles and his wifes shopping bill...they will be perfect when it comes to handling a bank.They have shown their skills in every shady deal..now the poachers can become gamekeepers

c adams, hamburg, germany

This whole saga is symptomatic of an administration flattered in the past by global circumstances that they contributed nothing towards but milked for every plaudit they could muster. Now they have to stand up and be counted everything they touch crumbles to dust.
Sheer incompetence for which Gordon Brown must take maximum blame.

A. Williams, Cradley Heath,

I'm sure that at £90k/mth Mr Sandler won't be in any hurry to sell NR back to the private sector.

DickW, Aberdeenshire, Scotland

But its not so long ago that you were criticising him for NOT nationalising.


I recommend some personal time dedicated to collecting a self consistent set of thoughts

Pete, Edinburgh,

And what about protecting the similar stakeholders in Equitable Life?

John, Colchester,

Investing in the stock market is a balancing act of risk and reward.

Although I don’t wish anyone to loose money the private investors who bought shares in Northern Rock did so willingly because they wanted a bigger return rather than putting their money into less risky investments where the returns where less.

A quick check of the share price of Northern Rock over the last 5 years shows that between Jan 04 and March 06 the shares rose in value by about 50%. If you want the reward you have to take the risk and sometimes that dose not come off.

The hedge funds have nothing to complain about either (although I am sure they will) because they willingly bought shares in Northern Rock after it crashed. They were opportunists after a quick killing, if they had any long term interest in the bank they should have purchased the remaining shares at the less than £1 trading price and been happy that they had secured ownership of a company that they claim has a £4 per share value.

Karl, Benfleet / Essex,

Can`t run the railways, Cant`t run schools, can`t run hosptiats, can`t maintain roads, can`t look afer records, how on this earth can this government be competent enough to run a bank?

D Goodfellow, Buckingham, Bucks

Big mistake Mr Brown!

Caroline, London,

This whole fiasco was basically about saving labour miner... i mean -voters.

pure and simple

Dan, London, UK

Isn’t it a little strange that Brown put £120bn of our money into Northern Rock then finds some unemployed guy to run it?

Brian Christley, Abergele, UK

This was a private company who made poor commercial decisions. The pain should therefore be felt by the people who sanctioned those decisions, ultimately the management and shareholders, and not taxpayers. Unfortunate for the staff, but then it wasn't much fun being a miner some years ago.

So to the new Chairman, Mr Darling, I say..... package the book as a combination of low and high risk assets, sell it for what you can, then run as fast as you can.

PS, your chances of a comfy merchant bank non exec role in the future is dwindling fast.

Simon, Leicester,

This is disgraceful. Northern Rock like so many banks got greedy. They brought this on themselves and this government has bailed them out. What happened to "taking responsibilty"?

The bank got itself in to this mess and so should suffer the consequences of it's own actions.

AND, I just don't buy Browns excuse that if they hadn't done this, other banks would have be seen as "shakey" or "under threat"? If that were the case, it would have happened last year when this all started.

Don't get me wrong,for some things I am in favour of nationalisation, but for this? No! Not on your nelly...

C. Hale, Tewkesbury,

In a scale from 1 to 10, how much embarassing is a NATIONALISATION?

riccardo, brussels,

What no one seems to care about or report on is how this affects the many mortgage holders current contract terms. I have a seven year fixed mortgage with Northern Rock now in it's 3rd year, Will this still be honoured? Can anyone out there tell me.

Tony Bonds, Erith, Kent

Gold .Credits. 45mins .It. Lost Data .MRSA.--------------the track record goes on. No one is responsible?

G.J. Mason, CARDIFF, WALES

Worry not. I'm sure that Mr Darling buoyed by the economic theories of his Boss, has - in the best interests of the taxpayer - conjured up a master plan for turning round Northern Rock that none of the professionals have thought of.

Richard Crow, Warsaw, Poland

not very prudent, eh Gordon?

pete, Hull,

The Government will get what they deserve through the ballot box over all they have done during this fiasco of Northern Rock and all their other blunders during the past ten years plus.

Maureen Speigel, London, United Kingdom

Gordon Brown sold our gold reserves for 290 dollars an ounce. The price now is 900 dollars an ounce. Now he is risking 100 billion dollars on saving a commercial company.

At a time when the UK coffers should have been overflowing, his incompetence means that our taxes keep going up so he can find other ways to squander cash.

Tim, Sherborne, UK