David Cameron began the night in rural Oxfordshire by tucking into a chili con carne cooked by wife Sam. More than 400 miles away in north Queensferry, Sarah Brown served up lamb stew... more
The next Chancellor will be faced with an uneviably full in-tray, inside which he'll find the document Does Britain need Building Societies? To save him reading it, I can tell him that Britain does indeed need them to prosper... more
The Financial Services Authority today revealed for the first time the economic disaster scenarios that it uses in its so-called stress tests on British banks and building societies ... more
Nationwide, the UK’s biggest building society, today blamed low interest rates and a big bill for the Government’s savings protection scheme as its pre-tax profit plunged 69% to £212 million ... more
As the football season draws to a close — it must be because it’s raining at Lords, halting the First Test — and the football writers ponder their final vote for next week’s award, I think we need a team assessment of the UK banks
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That was not a Budget for the City and it was never going to be. Even the pre-Budget lobbying from the Square Mile was low-key and barely audible above the screams of pain from industry and the services sector... more
The International Monetary Fund has warned that the global financial crisis was far from over, and losses by banks and other institutions will soar to a staggering $4.1 trillion by the end of 2010... more
Chancellor Alistair Darling is set to call for stronger regulation of mutually owned banks and building societies alongside next week's Budget as he looks at new ways to return nationalised banks into private hands... more
The trade body representing UK building societies said it was "disappointed and surprised" after a leading ratings agency downgraded nine of its members amid fears of rising bad debts... more
Nationwide Building Society has taken control of the healthy parts of failed rival Dunfermline after the taxpayer stumped up nearly £1.6 billion to rescue the Scottish firm... more
The Prime Minister has said that the Home Secretary’s use of parliamentary expenses to pay for pornographic films which her husband watched was “very much a personal matter” ... more
Google launches Street View, and Simon Davies of Privacy International, the group that campaigns against intrusion by businesses and governments, gets on his high horse and is quoted everywhere opposing the new service. But who is Davies? ... more
Morning:
6°c
