Alistair Darling ‘defends’ the decision for Lloyds to take over the bankrupt HBOS.
When asked whether the losses represented a disaster for the taxpayer that he had caused, he said the government had “no alternative” but to act.
“We didn’t have months or weeks to look at it, we had to intervene quickly and that is what we did,” he said.
Robert ‘ His Masters Voice’ Peston is now saying that it is nothing to do with Brown
Lloyds didn’t have to buy enfeebled HBOS – even though the government encouraged it to do so.
Robert Peston 13th Feb 2009
The government has also said it will over-rule any concerns that competition authorities may raise, BBC Business Editor Robert Peston has learned.
He added the prime minister was involved in negotiating the deal, which has the blessing of UK authorities.
Robert Peston 17th September 2008
Sounds like to me Lloyds was placed under heavy duress to buy the sinking ship by Brown desperate to try anything that half looked like a rescue package.
HBOS is a bottomless pit they have no idea what their liabilities are, the prudent Lloyds were compelled in my book to take over a swamp of Debt, Brown in his usual fashion has now walked away from the car crash denying he was at the wheel at the time of the accident.
Lloyds’s new problems spell more trouble for U.K. Prime Minister Gordon Brown. His government brokered the Lloyds-HBOS deal. It was part of a heralded bailout orchestrated by Mr. Brown to stabilize the country’s banks.
Now, the glow around Mr. Brown has been extinguished, as his popularity falls again. As in the U.S., the bailout may need to be revamped, something that has already happened numerous times in the U.K.
Wall Street Journal Fri 13th February 2009
The constant refrain of we are a do something party from Labour, has rebounded on them they did something and it has failed.
No wonder Mandelson has gone very quiet of late.
Rather than accept that Bankruptcy goes with Capitalism, it purges the inefficient and imprudent, they tried to buck the market.
HBOS should have been placed into administration in October, and broken up into new regional banks under new competant management, not creating a super bank that is heading for nationalisation at our expense one month after being formed,and not with Brown’s corrupt, shady and incompetant ‘friends’ in Banking in charge, like Moreno and Crosby.
UPDATE
Brown has just committed political suicide by ending final salary pensions for MP’s
They will lynch him