Rats loose in the granary

Not even waiting 24 hours after the deadly duo hurled £50 billion their way, the pack of merchant bankers who style themselves Britain's finance industry, but ought more accurately to be known as the country's top predators, have stuck two fingers up at them and gone their own merry and profiteering way.

Despite all of Mr Brown's sanctimonious pleading on Monday that the £50 billion windfall to the bankers was to stabilise the mortgage industry and give back a chance to first-time buyers to enter the housing market, Britain's second-largest lender Abbey announced on Tuesday that it is to screw customers who can't stump up at least 25 per cent of the price of their home as a deposit.

With lower rates and its tracker mortgage only being made available for those with a large deposit, the first-time buyer is, as one City source put it, "stuck, unless they have parents who can help."

So, home-buyers who cannot afford a large initial deposit or don't have a rich mummy and daddy behind them will be forced to take less competitive rates and pay more on their monthly repayments.

Once again, as with the 10p tax rate abolition, it's the rich what gets the pleasure and the poor what takes the blame.

And is there any clearer way for Abbey to let Mr Brown know just who is in charge in the City and underline that it isn't him?

Well, other bankers clearly think that there is.

Not content with access to £50 billion to defray its risks, the boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland is asking shareholders to pump in £12 billion of new capital, diluting their existing holdings by a hefty percentage unless they fork out again, given that the new rights offer is in the ratio of 11 new shares for every 18 existing shares that they hold.

According to RBS boss Sir Fred Goodwin, whose £4.2 million pay package included a £2.9 million bonus last year, the bank's financial position was "satisfactory" less than two months ago.

Does anyone seriously believe that things have changed so much in just eight or nine weeks?

And, if they have, should people who did not even foresee it be left in charge of the banking industry?

It should be noted that the bank, which claims to have lost another £5.9 billion recently, spent nearly £50 billion last year on the acquisition of Dutch bank ABN Amro, so it certainly isn't down to its last few bob.

And other banks are expected to jump on the rights issue bandwagon, including Barclays and Halifax Bank of Scotland. Both banks are denying this, but they would, wouldn't they?

The result of all this would seem to be that £50 billion of taxpayers' cash has vanished into the banks' black hole and many billions more are going to be raised by rights issues, all to correct the absolute dog's breakfast that a pack of avaricious speculators have made of the banking system that they are still to be left in charge of.

Meanwhile the lower paid are screwed on their tax, cut out of the housing market, the government is giving away their cash, and no attempt is being made by central or local government to supply social housing in anything like the amounts needed.

And they say that socialists are the impractical and unrealistic ones!