The points I made above indicate that NRK would not have needed the big loans which the government eventually had to provide.

Even staggering under the weight of the loans, they’ve managed to pay back something like £19bn pounds. That (plus the punitive interest, fees, etc.) could have been profit for Lloyds instead.

“If Virgin had bought Northern Rock however, it would have encountered the same further losses that the government has had to finance and would have had to seek such funding from outside sources”

I don’t believe this is the case, for the following reasons:-

- The government has been charging punitive interest, setup and management fees on the loans to NRK.

- There had been no leak to the press when Lloyds were interested; thus NRK would have had an extra 14bn of extra funding available.

- No extra “forced” funding due to Gordon trying to lend us out of recession.