[Ramrod]

had the bank been called Southern Rock, it would have been allowed to go to the wall

When Northern Rock started to go pear-shaped last August, it was soon represented as a crisis in the banking system. It wasn't. It was one bank with abysmal management and a dreadful business plan. Ignorance on the part of Alistair Darling, the Chancellor of the Exchequer, about how finance actually works precipitated the panic-stricken train of events that resulted in last Sunday's nationalisation. But that so many of its mortgagors and depositors were from Labour's heartland in the North-East counted for much more.