As several people have noted over the past few days, the public’s response to Northern Rock seems to be that they don’t have a great deal of trust in what politicians say. "Your money’s safe" they say and they line up to take it all out. "The Bank of England is behind the Rock" and they line up to take their money out.

Gordon Brown put his political credibility on the line yesterday
    by taking the unprecedented step of guaranteeing all savings in
    Northern Rock accounts.

Be interesting to see if they line up to take their money out today then, won’t it?

As the Government’s attempts to shore up public confidence in the
    banking system became increasingly desperate, the Treasury said it
    would also act as a guarantor for any other lenders that got into
    similar difficulties, leaving it open to an almost limitless
    financial liability.

Very interesting, eh? (Although, given that this is what we know they would do if there were a general run on the banks this isn’t perhaps all that surprising.)

As the bank’s share price continued to fall, anxiety in the City
    spread to other mortgage lenders. Almost a third was wiped off the
    value of  Alliance & Leicester shares, while Bradford &
    Bingley shares suffered a 15·4 per cent slump.

At some point these have got to be worth buying, don’t they? Or do we think that the housing market’s going to follow in crashing and thus there’s no value to be had at all?