Brown was not the author of the current plan

Daily Mail 18/10/08

"..But Brown was not the author of the current plan. The technical and crucial side of it was the responsibility of senior officials at the Bank of England. The Treasury lacks the required expertise.

After the emergence of the Brown plan, the clumsy political inserts have shown up all too plainly. Requiring the banks to forego paying out dividends to shareholders may please the public in its anti-bank fervour.

But it also means that shareholders, many of whom are company pension funds heavily reliant on dividends, have either sold their stock or are expected to do so.

This has been a principal cause of the plunge on the stock market in the wake of the rescue. Not very clever.

The other aspect which suggests that the Prime Minister has still not got the point lies in his announcement that, in return for Government help, banks must set out to lend on the same scale as they did in 2007."