Snowmail: Lloyds-HBOS merger row

Updated on 14 February 2009

Krishnan Guru-Murthy writes on tonight's programme, looking ahead to Lloyds, pensions and US-Afghanistan relations...

Hi there, Krishnan here - quite a lot about. Chancellor Darling is in Rome meeting finance ministers from the G7 but he has taken the opportunity to defend the government's backing of the Lloyds-HBOS merger, while unable to rule out nationalising the super bank now in dire trouble after the revelation of how much HBOS had lost last year.

The decision to push through the merger last autumn is under scrutiny now, with plenty of wise-after-the-event types piling in to say what a silly thing it was.

And it is true that the Lloyds chairman said he thought most of the toxic assets in HBOS were known back in January - when that now appears not to have been the case. So was it the right thing to do or not?

To watch last night's report click here:

BROWN ORDERS MP PENSION REVIEW

Gordon Brown has ordered a review of the MPs' pension scheme which could slash benefits and end the final salary scheme. It might sound a popular move on the face of it - MPs are on a very generous final salary scheme.

But it might actually be more sinister than that, paving the way for a rewrite of the public sector pension landscape, and giving the private sector the green light to close the few final salary schemes still left.

The unions don't seem worried about it yet but one can't help but feel there will be more to this story than meets the eye.

KARZAI AND OBAMA: TENSIONS RIFE

We have a piece from Kabul tonight on how the relationship between the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, and the new American administration might be falling apart.

The tensions between the two are now pretty open but what do the Americans think a new man at the top might achieve that the old one couldn't? That's a harder one.

HELP FOR THE JOBLESS

A poll in tomorrow's newspapers has Labour on the worst position yet - surely a product of the recession and latest banking crisis.

So what is the impact of the downturn on politics in Labour heartlands? Our political editor, Gary Gibbon, has been to Sheffield to see how the unemployed there feel about the government and its attempts to help them in ways the Tories arguably did not in the 80s.

It isn't good news for Gordon Brown. Gary also uncovers the way private sector companies are helping the long term unemployed apply for jobs and how the contracts with them could start costing the taxpayer an awful lot more.

JADE GOODY'S CANCER BATTLE

And the woman who perhaps epitomises the 21st century celebrity, Jade Goody, is dying, and getting married and making as much money for her sons while she can.

We've been talking to her publicist Max Clifford about what's happening, what her rationale is and how it will unfold in the public eye, on Living TV.