To:
letters@sunday-times.co.uk
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Rachel Johnson's husband's suggestion indeed makes sense and could work. Let the Government give the money it is dissipating on the discredited banks to a state-owned bank "unadulterated by toxic assets or rotten debts." The instability of our banking system has been highlighted recently by the new Treasury Minister, Lord Myners, whose worry is that our banks "have gone from a period of 'excessive exuberance' to one of 'reckless caution' " and who describes them as "at the shallow end of the pool clinging on to the rail." (The Times interview 24 January) If not full-blown nationalisation, which Lord Myners disavows at present, could Rachel's brother, the ever-resourceful and imaginative Boris, be persuaded to set up a pilot Greater London Authority bank and shame the Government into providing the legislative and fiscal support?