Thanks, Gordon

“Don’t worry,”  the Government told us when Northern Rock was nationalised, “the £100 billion debt is secured against the bank’s assets.” And what assets might they be? As Guido points out in an excellent post this morning, there’s not a whole lot there. And what is there is rapidly being sold off to get government debt levels down.  Hardly the kind of security that taxpayers want.

And the picture’s looking even worse now the bank’s announced it lost £500 million in the first half of this year. This is far from being a profitable company. And things can only get worse for them as the credit crunch bites even deeper. The likely result? The burden on the taxpayer bill will grow and grow and grow.

Yes, Northern Rock is sinking. And, thanks to Brown, we’re going down with it.