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 some unrest from a number of media outlets and the Liberal Democrats' Vince Cable for example, but the decision to issue the bonus was defended by the Unite union, calling it a reward for their hard work and dedication. On 3 March 2009 Northern Rock noted that only £8.9 billion of the loan remained unpaid. On 1 October 2010 the bank announced that another £700 million had been paid off of the loan in the last three months. At the end of July 2008 Northern Rock announced the first set of redundancies; 800 staff were made compulsorily redundant and a