An insurance society for the ruling class
An editorial in the Financial Times (21 January) summed up well the Government's new plan for the collapsed bank Northern Rock. "The plan is this. Northern Rock will issue billions of pounds in new bonds... and repay its debt to the Bank of England. Private investors will [take over the bank]. And to make it work the bonds - all £30 billion or so - will carry a government guarantee... "The package amounts to a subsidy [from the Government to the Northern Rock shareholders and its putative buyers] and it may be worth billions of pounds... "[But] the political attractions are obvious. The...