Northern Rock

I have been becoming ever more irate at the seemingly unstoppable waste of my money that is the Northern Rock scandal. Every day brings with it a new revelation of mismanagement and governmental hypocrisy.

The latest chapters in this sorry tale relate that as a British taxpayer, I have now poured £900 of my hard earned cash into this stinking cess pool to prop up incompetence, failure and greed and that the shareholders are not happy that there is no buyer foolish enough to pay a vastly over inflated price for a bank reaping the consequences of its reckless fiscal policies.

Well excuse me, but I don't have any sympathy for the equity holders in Northern Rock. Every investor should have it drummed firmly into their heads that share prices can go up or down and that a company's market value is never determined as of right, but is firmly linked to the company's performance, which in turn is inextricably tied to the competence and wisdom of its management.

And I can't help thinking that if Northern Rock were called London Rock, or South-Eastern Rock, or hang on, wait for it, Barings, there would be no comparable life belt thrown out by a Treasury anxious to appease swathes of Labour voters who want to have their cake and to eat it too.