Can we divorce Darling?

Alistair Darling is ready to hand over up to £5bn of taxpayers’ money to the part-nationalised Lloyds Banking Group in order to shore up its finances.  If there is one thing guaranteed to make me more angry than incompetent politicians – it is incompetent politicians and incompetent bankers working together to rip off the taxpayer.

Lloyds, 43% owned by the taxpayer, is seeking £25bn of extra capital so it can escape the multibillion-pound cost of the government’s toxic asset insurance scheme. Selling new shares worth up to £5bn to the Treasury is part of the complex plan currently being considered by the regulators.

Any cash injection would follow the £17bn poured into Lloyds after its rescue takeover of HBOS last year when the collapse of Lehman Brothers sent the financial markets into a tailspin.

Lloyds has managed to repay £3bn but is now asking the taxpayer for more cash at a time when concerns over the budget deficit have led both major parties to promise severe cuts in public spending.

The move is likely to be seen as another climbdown by the government in its treatment of banks that are preparing to pay their staff millions of pounds in bonuses on the back of booming markets

Eric Daniels, Lloyds’ chief executive, is telling City investors that he is keen to extricate the bank from the scheme so he can keep the taxpayer’s stake below the 50% level and out of the government’s control. Under the current terms of the scheme Lloyds would be required to issue “B shares” to the government which do not carry voting rights but would force the taxpayer’s economic stake beyond 60%.

So if I understand things correctly, Lyoyds are asking the government for yet more money to stop them being owned by you and me.  I guess there is a certain novelty value in banks coming cap in hand to the taxpayer to be bailed out.  But for the life of me I cannot see why we don’t just wave the greedy incompetent bastards goodbye