Alistair Darling said yesterday he favoured tougher regulation of banks, but declined to follow the lead of US President Barack Obama in capping executive salaries at banks now on government life-support. Appearing before the Treasury select committee in parliament, the chancellor said: "Regulation does need to be more intrusive. Regulators do need to ask questions of those who they regulate becau...

Vince CableLib Dem Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable responds to the government statement on an ‘asset protection scheme’ for banks The Government's latest proposals for tackling the bank crisis are "absolutely dire", Liberal Democrat Shadow Chancellor Vince Cable has told Parliament. Speaking in response to the Chancellor's statement on the asset protection scheme for banks, Dr ...

Can the government force the banks to pass on interest rate cuts and, if so, why won't they? That's the question I put not once but several times to the Chancellor this afternoon. Alastair Darling's reply was instructive. It's "imperative" that banks pass on the cut he said but the government could not set the price of their financial products. In order to see this content you ...

Last week there was an apparent disagreement betweent he Governor and the Chancellor over the dangers of mega banks. The Governor rightly warned that some banks are too big to fail, implying something should be done to stop this. The Chancellor seemed to be more accepting of very large banks,

Chancellor Alistair Darling has told MPs the government will do "whatever is necessary" to maintain financial stability.

Far from saving the world, this government’s banking policy has been a disaster. First they bungled their monetary and regulatory policy allowing the uncontrolled boom. Then they helped bankrupt some of the leading players. Now we have too few banks, too little credit and too many losses from

The new shadow chancellor faced a barrage of attacks over his economic record as his political opponents seized on admissions by Labour colleagues that they failed properly to regulate the banks in government

So who's in charge here - the government lending £37bn to bail out badly run banks or the bankers that caused the crisis? The chancellor is attempting to crack the whip and toughen the voluntary code on lending to small business. The banks veer between protesting that they are lending just as much as in 2007 to suggesting it's none of the government's business. Darling has...

Under new “liquidity” rules the main banks are going to have to lend loads of money to the government. Convenient that, for the government, at a time when it is short of a pound or three. Does it make any sense for the banks? Does it

I know I keep saying this. It’s almost like tourettes. But our government really are a bunch of financially illiterate morons. This really is f**king stupid… The Chancellor, Alistair Darling, made a fresh appeal to banks to pass on the new rates to help individuals and businesses. “Banks must treat their customers fairly,” he said. “In the same