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
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