Northern Rock - common sense at last!

9.00.00am UTC (GMT +0000) Sun 27th Jan 2008

Graham Oakes, Lib Dem PPC for Exeter has welcomed the government's decision to finally nationalise Northern Rock.

"Vince Cable called for this approach weeks ago but the government have dithered and have desperately hoped someone from the private sector, such as Richard Branson, would solve their dilemma. They would rather have spent billions of pounds of public money sweetening the offer to a private company to takeover Northern Rock, rather than face the N word - Nationalisation. This fear of being seen as old style Labour continued as the Chancellor referred to it as being taken into public ownership, studiously avoiding the N word."

"This is the least bad option for Northern Rock and for the tax payer and should have occurred far sooner. Mr Darling has not impressed anyone with his mishandling of this issue."