January 15, 2009

To most people the numbers are now so large as to be almost devoid of meaning. Yesterday Lord Mandelson committed another £11bn-plus of taxpayers' money to the struggle to get banks lending again. Just £11bn? Haven't the Tories been advocating £50bn since November?

Set against the £37bn already pumped by the state into the recapitalisation of Royal Bank of Scotland and the Lloyds Banking Group, and the £350bn or so of liquidity and other measures orchestrated by the government and the Bank of England since this financial crisis first erupted in August 2007, the business secretary's package of measures looks like relatively small beer.