Nationalisation of Northern Rock In October 2008 the chairman Ron Sandler noted that there had been informal talks concerning the idea of the merger with the government, but there had been no subsequent discussion. Sandler did however add "It would not surprise me at some point if a closer look was taken at the method of managing loan books within government-owned banks". In March 2009 Alistair Darling said that he was keeping his options open during the "fast-moving" crisis in the banking industry, and thus not ruling out the possibility of a mortgage book merger between Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley. On 24
Government intervention during the subprime mortgage crisis difficulty finding finance to keep the business going and approached the Bank of England as lender of the last resort on the 12 September 2007. This caused mass concern about the bank's future. The Bank of England and the UK Government both insisted that the bank was secure and would not collapse. However this failed to stop thousands of customers withdrawing around £1billion from their savings. Northern Rock's share price plummeted and intense pressure from the media, political opposition parties and customers of Northern Rock, forced the Government to nationalize it on 17 February 2008 (see Nationalisation of Northern Rock).