ALISTAIR DARLING

Leading and emerging nations will commit this week to pursuing responsible economic policies that do not hurt each other's prospects with protectionism or currency devaluations, according to a draft G20 statement.

G20 finance ministers promised rescue money for troubled emerging market economies on Saturday and said they would use their full fiscal and monetary firepower to combat the worst downturn since the 1930s.

More spending will give only a brief sugar high if G20 nations fail to clean up their banks, the World Bank said on Friday as economic powers struggled to agree a response to the worst downturn in decades.

Japan joined the U.S. push for more government spending to fight the economic crisis on Friday but G20 unity looked seriously compromised after Paris accused Washington of disregarding the urgent need for tough market regulation.

we are not that close to a last ditch scenario just yet, though very much aware of the strong economic head winds, said a spokeswoman for private client investment manager Brewin Dolphin, a Lloyds investor. One option could be for the government to convert 4 billion pounds of preference shares into equity, which would cut about 480 million pounds in annual interest but lift the government's s...

The Bank of England announced an unprecedented $100 billion ( £50 billion) plan to allow banks to swap mortgage-backed securities for British Treasury bills in a bid to bail out Britain's ailing banking system.

The Department for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform (BERR) has announced a new scheme which it says could lift 100,000 households out of fuel poverty. The BERR said that it would be providing an extra £225 million to help meet the cost of rising fuel bills.

By Adrian AshEvery time the bankers cock up, your money steps in thanks to government bail outs to patch up the losses.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has said that the decision to nationalise Northern Rock was the right move at the right time for the right reasons. Brown was speaking at a Downing Street briefing, after the news broke on Sunday that the struggling mortgage lender would be nationalized.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown defended his reputation for sound economic management on Monday in the face of mounting criticism over his decision to nationalize ailing bank Northern Rock after lending it 25 billion pounds ($49 billion). Brown helped transform the Labour Party in the 1990s by ditching an attachment to state ownership.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown faced a political and public backlash on Monday after his decision to take ailing bank Northern Rock Plc into public ownership, the first UK nationalization since the 1970s.

The U.K. government will nationalize Northern Rock Plc bank after a bid by Virgin Group Ltd. was rejected, Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling said today. The government did not select either of two bids by a Virgin consortium and an in-house proposal.

According to a newspaper report, Sir Richard Branson's Virgin Group is in the process of making an improved offer for the ailing Northern Rock bank.

Britain will guarantee all existing deposits at embattled mortgage bank Northern Rock, finance minister Alistair Darling said on Monday.

All options will be considered to save embattled bank Northern Rock, British finance minister Alistair Darling said on Monday as fears of a crisis threaten to spoil Prime Minister Gordon Brown's first year in power.

The Bank of England has offered an emergency loan to Northern Rock after the mortgage lender became the biggest British casualty of the credit squeeze sparked by the crisis in the U.S. subprime mortgage market. The British central bank's support is the first time it has acted as lender of last resort in this way since becoming independent on interest rate policy in 1997.

Going back to "old fashioned banking may not be a bad thing", Chancellor Alistair Darling said in a newspaper interview published on Thursday.