As these official Bank of England statements reveal, the bank’s liabilities went up £11,169,591,442 on Wednesday September 19, 2007. This was Gordon’s Black Wednesday.

How much will the taxpayer lose in Northern Rock? With recession coming and for the first time since the 1991 negative-equity disaster, three consecutive months of recorded falls in property prices, it is not looking good. The total level of public support is “confidential”, but we can assume it is now £30 billion.

Northern rock has de facto already been nationalised, it now looks increasingly like that this will soon be formalised. Is it any wonder why the “economic competence” poll ratings for the Labour party have collapsed to levels not seen since before the 1992 ERM debacle. The nationalisation of Northern Rock was not in the national interest, it was in the narrow interest of Labour to protect their North East heartland votes. It is not a great bargain…