BLOG: What if the government had done a Murdoch?

GOSLING'S GROUSE

"The business is bust," Richard Woolnough told an Investment Week conference in London yesterday.

He was not talking about the News of the World - it had not shut when he got to his feet on Thursday morning - he was talking about British banks. He did not mean HSBC and Standard Chartered, which are listed in London but are international businesses, or probably even Barclays. Barclays is probably best described as an investment bank, which happens to have a retail deposit taking business that goes back hundreds of years. No, Woolnough was really referring to the likes of Lloyds and RBS. Their busineses are bust because, in simple terms, banks borrow at one rate and lend at anoth...