Why is it that, as a taxpayer, approximately £2000 has been lent to Northern Rock. A bad business model should be allowed to fail, as it would in any other industry. The shareholders should be those who take the pain. It is their comapny run by their management. They may wish to sue the directors for their failures, but that is all they are netitled to.
Is Mr King going to in a position that obliges him to us my tax payments to prop up another badly run business in the banking sector.
I pay taxes for public services (poor though they are) not to allow mis managed banks to be rescued

Tim Fitzsimmons, Rudgwick, UK

The banks have been greedy and now look to pay for their unprofessional actions. Loaning advances for mortgages to people that are bound to be in trouble when the economy takes the usual periodical downturn has been a stupid action and it looks as those who have savings, especially for old age, will also have to pay as it is bound to affect the value of the pound. In a normal market, tax payers money would not be allowed to be used to rescue reckless businesses and some banks must fall into this category.

B J Deller, Marbella, Spain

The latest 'credit crisis' is just another consequence of our 'get rich quick', 'get something for nothing', gambling culture.
Whether it is currency trading, the stock market , housing market or the national lottery people expect to be able to get rich without doing any productive work. But every winner needs a loser. Everyone cannot be a winner, and the current housing market is just like a huge pyramid scheme, in that the ones who buy in last before reality dawns loose most. Except that the ones who get caught are often the ones who need a house to live in.
The banks have played 'pass the parcel' with SIVs and sacrificed lending quality for revenue volumes and deserve no pity. The music has stopped and they are all having to open their parcels. Prudence and experience have been redundant banking values for nearly 2 decades. The results that they expected have become the consequences they should have forseen. Now we will all suffer in the resulting recession.

Ivor Anderson, Newcastle, Co. Down, UK

The Government has no business in this rescue. No bank should be given such backing by any public funded institution, especially ones like Northern Rock who, with their 125% LTV mortgages were reckless in their lending to say the least. Come on Bank of England, wake up and prove to the world you are fit for purpose.

Richard Stephens, Swansea, UK