the uk goverment has messed up (again): Northern Rock to be nationalised
 

Northern Rock to be nationalised.

This is going to be a huge embarresment for them.

you guys can't be any worse off then our gov.

actually US FED had quickly learned the lesson of "making public statement about borrowed reserves to banks" from GB and they rather hide it in Term Auction Facility now.When you let public to let know that some bank is insolvent, you get a run on bank immediately. Thats what happened to the NR.
Some US IB banks arent in better shape, eg. City paying 11% interest rates on loan from Abu Dhabi. That tells something....

On the other side, GB already gave to NR 55 Billion Pounds in the past and without goverment NR would be already BK. If current NR shareholders had some common sense, they wouldnt be shareholders of NR :error, yet they expect financial compensation :1orglaugh

Is that the bank that rogue trader lost all the money for?

No, that was France..if you mean the more recent one. The British one ages ago was a totally different bank. This is a fairly small regional bank that ran into troubles earlier in the year and people did as near a 'run on a bank' as most Western countries have seen in many a year. Mostly because they were overreacting due to tabloids intentionally getting old people worked up. So, the gov't stepped in and said they would back them for a while to people wouldn't lose their money. Then they have been trying to arrange a buyout bid by other banks and big business (not the least being Richard Branson). Meanwhile many are screaming for them to nationalize it as it was public money that went into bailing it out and therefore why should the public money go to a corporation that took over and then perhaps wouldn't pay back that money. So, after months of yelling from the tabloids that it should be nationalized the gov't does nationalize it and this starts the tabloids screaming that they were dumb to nationalize it. Welcome to the UK, 2008.

There is a great song from the Kaiser Cheifs called Angry Mob which I think brilliant sums up a good portion of this country at times. It goes something like 'We are the angry mob, we read the papers every day. We like what we like and we hate what we hate but we are also easily swayed.'

damn thats unbelievable - it was all over the news at the time and now theyre making it a gov bank unbelievable