Snowmail: Bradford & Bingley nationalised

Last Modified: 29 Sep 2008
By: Jon Snow

On tonight's programme.

Welcome to the second bank nationalisation in recent British history - Bradford & Bingley. It has done nothing to comfort the markets. Bank shares have slumped.

The amazing thing about B&B is that 82 per cent of their mortgages were self-certificated. In other words few checks were done as to the financial capacity of the mortgagee either to pay it back or to pay interest on it.

Additionally, B&B were so hungry for a piece of the action in US mortgages they bought what proved to be two bad lumps of debt in America which gave them nothing but grief.

Some believe it's a bank that should have gone to the wall in any other circumstances, but Alistair Darling tells us tonight that if it had, it would have infected the market - well it's seems to have done that anyway. Faisal Islam looks at the immediate consequences and I have an in-depth interview with the Chancellor about yet another instance of failed bank regulation.

The real bit of the market hit by the latest crisis has been buy-to-let - the idea ordinary people could take on vast quantities of flats and houses and become landlords overnight. Katie Razzall reports on how it's all come to a very grievous end.

We'll also be reporting from the United States on what's happening there, especially Wall Street.

George Osborne's speech

We are also today at the Tory party conference where the shadow chancellor, George Osborne, has made an imaginative keynote speech.

His difficulty and that of his Tory colleagues - indeed the difficulty of the political classes worldwide - is that the gyrations of the financial system have served to render them all somewhat pygmy-like. Far from being an easy coast this week, the Tories may have a bit of an uphill struggle to assert themselves.

Another Damien Hirst?

And finally, it's Turner prize time again. Nicolas Glass describes this year's offerings - four of them - as rather flat. But these days you daren't ignore the thing for fear that beneath the flatness lurks another Damien Hirst. And you'd nevr want to miss that, would you?

We're on at seven. Every frame a Rembrandt as always. Seen you then.

Jon Snow

And from Keme on More4 News

We'll have the latest from Washington on that congressional bailout vote, and Kylie will be live at the Conservative Party conference in Birmingham, where we're asking whether Britain is ready to hug a Tory.

Not just whether Cameron can win floating voters' votes, but whether he floats your boat. We've been out around town taking the political temperature of Birmingham and asking shoppers, drinkers, football fans and lap dancers whether blue is the new black.