London’s Metropolitan Policy Authority had £30m deposited with Landsbanki, the Icelandic bank which collapsed in late 2008. Combing through some of the latest financial information from the MPA, it’s clear that the MPA is now expecting (at best) to get 83% of that back, leaving the police with a £5.1m loss. Ouch. Though not so

Banking shares have been obliterated today, due to fears of another Soviet-style, socialist Brownian bank bailout. It is Labour’s spin about how Brown is going to ’save the world’ that has caused Barclays’, a top-notch bank, shares to lose 25 per cent of their value. Labour should shut up rather than causing more Brownian destructive destruction in

... to lose two would look like carelessness. I like to think Oscar would approve of my stealing his line, there has certainly been something of the wild about this week, and it's not over yet by a long chalk. Concerns are already being raised that RBS could be next in line for a messy ending leaving Scotland with zero banks in a week when it started out with two. I really don't think th...

Freedom of Information revelations uncover latest twist in Westminster Council's Icelandic Bank saga. £3.2 million of the £17 million invested by Westminster City Council in the now-failed Icelandic bank Landisbanki – and now at risk - was invested in August 2008, even though the Council's Treasury Management advisers, Sector, had told the Council in 13th May 2008 that ...

Despite earlier government assurances, taxpayer losses on bank bailouts are going to be huge. Yesterday, the IMF said that UK taxpayers can expect to lose £200bn, or 13.4% of our GDP. Needless to say, the government's version is rather different....

This week has been a bad one for the government as investor in bank shares. If they go ahead with their purchases of HBOS and RBS, taxpayers will be sitting on an immediate loss in excess of £8 billion. At a time when money is scarce and people are overtaxed, is this a good idea?

A small number of savers who had more than £85,000 on deposit with Southsea Mortgages could lose the money after the lender was yesterday forced into insolvency by the authorities. That’s the way to do it, get rid of that pesky moral hazard. Now, let’s see which lefties insist that the depositors must be made

The Bank England reveals it lent RBS and HBOS £61.6bn in emergency funding in October and November 2008.

Channel 4's Dispatches series is putting out an episode entitled How The Banks Never Lose tomorrow night (25 August 2008) at 8pm. Unfortunately, rather than actually looking at why and how the banking industry never loses, the programme notes suggest that we're simply going to get another self-righteous snow job: As the credit crunch continues to leave Britain cash-strapped and high stre...

Communities and Local Government - This release relates to the local authority Icelandic bank investments based on a survey of 482 authorities in England as at 31 December 2008.