Call It Off

摘要

It was a desperate attempt to stem financial panic, and it worked a treat. As banks, house prices and stockmarkets all tumbled in mid-September, news that Britain's government had brokered a rescue of its biggest mortgage lender, troubled hbos, by the relatively sturdy Lloyds tsb revived spirits no end. No matter that the deal would weld the country's fourth and fifth biggesfbanks, by assets, into its biggest retail-banking outfit: ministers argued correctly that saving the financial system was more important than fussing about competition.