With no electoral mandate of his own, Gordon Brown has decided instead to start fulfilling the pledges made in the 1983 Labour Manifesto. This is what he signed up to then:
We expect the major clearing banks to co operate with us fully on these reforms, in the national interest. However, should they fail to do so, we shall stand ready to take one or more of them into public ownership. This will not in any way affect the integrity of customers' deposits.
The Government's Northern Rock bill just published will allow any number of banks to be arbitrarily nationalised by the Exchequer, so maybe he does have in mind the 1983 pledge "to take one or more of them into public ownership".
Meanwhile, I am writing to the Speaker to request a specific Commons monthly question time on Northern Rock. Every other Government department has one. There's even 10 minutes each month on the Olympics - and that has a budget of only £9.3 billion, not the £110 billion of Northern Rock.
