Nationalisation of Northern Rock in the event that the takeover bids fail. On 12 January 2008, the Treasury recruited Ron Sandler, the former Lloyd's of London Chief Executive, to lead Northern Rock, in the event that the bank was nationalised. If the Bank was to be temporarily nationalised, the government would manage the Bank at "arm's length" on a commercial basis, where services for savers and borrowers would not be affected and the company would continue to operate as normal. However nationalisation would also address the future of the Northern Rock Foundation. Alistair Darling rejected the possibility of the Bank being put into administration.
Nationalisation of Northern Rock but name, Northern Rock is now nationalised". The addition of this borrowing to the Government's totals increases the National Debt from £537 billion, or 37.7% of GDP to around 45%, breaking the so-called Golden Rule which sets the Public Sector Borrowing Requirement threshold at below 40%. The figure is the equivalent of £3,000 additional borrowing for every family in Britain. In the 2008 Budget, the Chancellor of the Exchequer announced that the government would issue £14 billion of gilts in order to cover the Northern Rock debt. On 26 March the Financial Services Authority released an internal report into the