Economics 101

"I think most people expect that we have several more months to get through before the banks have revealed all the losses that have occurred, and we have taken measures to finance their obligations that result from that, but we are going in the right direction." Yes, indeed, but no thanks to the behaviour of the Labour regime.

As lender of last resort any central bank provides liquidity at a penal interest rate to commercial banks against good quality collateral; doubtless the Bank of England, under its estimable Governor, is doing just that right now.

The Bank of England does not lend on commercial terms for commercial purposes, in the kind of operation typical of a soviet-type banking system, where the regime requires the Central Bank, the mono bank, (as was the case with Northern Quicksands as no other bank would go anywhere near it), to lend to undercapitalised enterprises; and even then, loans to those enterprises would be to state enterprises, not to a quasi-fiscal Treasury asset of dubious value.

That Mervyn King had to explain,
"I said to the Chancellor, ''This is not something which a central bank can do ... They don't normally finance takeovers by one company for another, let alone to the tune of £30 billion, which is rather a large amount of money.",
means either the First Lord of the Treasury and the Chancellor of the Exchequer need to repeat Economics 101, or they have mistaken their country and their century.

Furthermore:

The Governor praised the Chancellor, saying,
"And I don't think it took the Chancellor very long to recognise that not only was this something which central banks don't do, it's also something that governments don't do."