Helping who, exactly?

Another week, another round of bank bail-outs. The latest cost to UK taxpayers? £30.5 billion. That’s around £500 for every person in the country. Seems like rather a lot to pay for three new high street banking brands, which may or may not be viable sales propositions three or four years down the track, does it not?

It appears we’re set to end 2009 where we began it, namely with bankers’ grubby mitts deep in the public purse. Just out of interest, does anyone feel they’ve benefited directly from any of Darling Alistair’s largesse? I’m thinking in particular of his fleet of business assistance programmes from back in Q1 - the Working Capital Scheme, Enterprise Finance Guarantee Scheme and Capital for Enterprise Fund, among them – all of which were designed (supposedly) to increase lending to companies feeling the pinch.

Is it just me or have all of these schemes done b*gger all? It’s certainly hard to know who’s helping who sometimes.