Brown's spend, spend, spend during his Chancellor's days has brought us into the current economy we are facing today. His appeal at a Downing Street meeting for the lenders to pass on cuts appeared to fall on deaf ears with HBOS, which owns the Halifax, increasing its rate on some mortgages from 6.09 to 6.59 per cent. Borrowers taking out this type of deal will now pay 46 more a month. On a two-year tracker, the rate will increase from 1.49 points above base rate to 1.99 points, giving a current rate of 6.99 per cent.

Other lenders are expected to follow Halifaxs lead.

If the Government wants the banks to lower mortgage rates to home owners - why not just offer them through Northern Rock? Everyone would rush to the Rock to get the loans forcing banks to match the rates or lose the business? Or maybe the government would then run into bigger credit crunch?

Well I think he is doing a fine job.

he's one of the few that has a job in this crap country

GO BACK HOME THEN AND TAKE HIM WITH YOU.

aye, take him back to your country mitzy

what country is that then..?

china or wherever u come fae

My Mrs says I am a Falang

Haystack you are wise enough to know that an Irish Bank needs to g'tee its depositors - as they have been a little careless with their management to date.
Icelandic Banks were shouting how good they were ( and offering exciting interest rates - should have been a Warning!), yert now we learn their protection scheme is only for Iceland Residents, which reduces the I_Government's exposure somewhat.... ( Depositor-guy was on Working Lunch last Friday, I think).

It just shows that % "extra" may not be worth the risk.

Anybody remember BCCI? Lesson not learned.

this is what Gordo has allowed to happen to us , Jeez

CANBERRA (Reuters) - Canada has the world's soundest banking system, closely followed by Sweden, Luxembourg and Australia, a survey by the World Economic Forum has found as financial crisis and bank failures shake world markets.
But Britain, which once ranked in the top five, has slipped to 44th place behind El Salvador and Peru, after a 50 billion pound pledge this week by the government to bolster bank balance sheets.

Britains banking system best in the world.. after El Salvador ..lol.

and PERU.

BCCI HINDU BANK

Why, when I see Brown or Darling on the box do I think of flounders, deck chairs & the Titanic?

This is turning into a total disaster.....I never thought I'd be mentioning 1929-30....but this is very very serious.....!.

we r going to communism soon.

china will rule uk and usa soon......u will be walking military style to work and worshipping chinese leader.

if u look at john templeton, one of best if not the best investors, he bought on max pessimism......but he started when depression was running which lasted 25 years!

what did he do or what was required?

a MAJOR WAR was needed and WW2 was perfect opportunity.....he invested in lots of poor sp shares and he quadrupled his money in 5 years.

moral of story is we need a major war............russia or iran seem high on list.
i'd go for russia as its been dangerous and evil for last 100 years.....and putin wants to take on usa anyway and wants to nuke poland and ukraine.

and on top of all the rest of the bad news the Sunday Times is full of stories of Labour politicians feeding at the trough

nothing new there then!!!

i remember when john major was in power the media went on about sleaze etc......cash for questions....err tha was 1k or therabouts.

labour politicians are fleecing millions......geoffrey robinson the paymaster general i think 12 million went missing but nothing happened.......then theres mandelson, cherie blair and her dodgy house deal. even labour councillors are corrupt.......most aint true socialist anyway as most have shares, pensions etc. browns pension is huge in pensions.

when stalin died, all he had was 3 suits........now he was a true socialist.....and for the masses

I think Brown's done okay actually. He just needs to extract big concessions from the bank. The problem is the media who go mental as soon as regulation is mentioned. They cite the fear of so -called "wealth creaters" fleeing the country. Good, we might get people who actually know what they're doing. People in finance should be forced to sigh a hippocratic oath. And if they do not deliver properly they should be put in jail. David Cameron is even worse when it comes to deregulation and favouring bonuses. LETS HAVE BLOOD!!!! I want to see Brown force the heads of every bank onto a panel in front of live TV and each one stands up and apologises, a beating in public would be good too. He should demand the money if they want this. ACCOUNTABILITY!!!!! The people want blood.