"The Government needs to get tough. The nation's top bankers must be called to a private room and be forced to put their cards on the table – fully disclosing their exposure to sub-prime liabilities in the UK and elsewhere. It should be made clear that any executive who withholds information, which it can later be proven they knew, will be subject to criminal prosecution.

Once the exposures are clear – or clearer – we need further consolidation. The weaker banks that have made the worst decisions must be subsumed by stronger, more prudent institutions. That's how capitalism works, or is supposed to work. But ministers and regulators are blocking this fundamental purging process, preventing credit markets from rebooting and storing up untold problems for the future."

At last my own preferred outline articulated. Link here

Since we need a "tough government" and not a stalinist one, we had better get a new one. Fast.