Between a Rock and a hard place

I am thrilled to learn that the European Commission is making sense for a change and has suggested that Northern Rock could be forced to repay government loans more swiftly and scale back its business even further as the price for securing EU approval for its rescue.

The Commission has said it will begin an in-depth investigation into possibly illegal state aid by the government which nationalised the mortgage lender in February and has lent it £24bn, plus guarantees.

While I accept that the collapse of any financial institution would have a massive impact on the economy, as a committed Small Business Champion I was appalled to see such a massive amount of tax-payers money being ‘lent’ on an apparent wave of the hand to one business. Twenty four billion is after all about the same as the total revenue generated by the UK Recruitment Industry, the same as the UK spends on the provision of all primary and secondary education and five times the money spent on Class A, B and C drugs by illegal users.

Come on UKG let’s get this into perspective! Especially when, in my time, I have had to go cap-in-hand to an inadequate banker to get my mitts on the smallest and most bureaucratically wrapped government backed loan guarantee scheme worth little more than the Ministers monthly allowances (allegedly).

Wouldn’t it have been better to nationalise Richard Branson and let him sort it out for us; we could have given him Concorde at the same time.

Gareth