How much are we Britons, and also our fellow Europeans, in hock to bail out the banks?

As governments around Europe impose grim austerity on some of their citizens ("some" because the claim that "we are all in this together" is a fib), we show how generous these governments have been to the banks.


These graphs, using data provided by governments to the European Union, show the Assets and Liabilities of the UK government and also for the European Union as a whole. Note that these figures relate purely to government and the bank bailouts - and don't include assets/liabilities from other government activities or non-governmental support. The Eurostat briefing note states the data "is only intended to show government interventions directly related to the support for financial institutions. Support operations by central banks, government support measures for non-financial institutions and general economic support measures are not included."


The 'Assets' are mainly the shares in banks bought by the governments (e.g. Lloyds, RBS etc), and the money owed to the governments by the banks. 


The 'Liabilities' are mainly money borrowed by the governments to hand to the banks, plus the potential cost to the governments if the 'too big to fail' banks need to be prevented from failing.


Assets: Shares bought by government in financial institutions (Lloyds; RBS; etc), and loans made by government to financial institutions:

·        Loans granted by government or acquired from financial institutions (assets);

·        Debt instruments issued by financial institutions and bought by government as provision of liquidity (assets);

·        Equity subscribed by government in financial institutions as a counterpart for a provision of liquidity to the banks (assets).

Liabilities: Money borrowed by government to buy bank shares and make loans to prop up the banks:

·        Loans incurred (directly or indirectly) by government in order to finance various interventions (liabilities).

·        Debt securities issued by government to finance the interventions (liabilities).

Contingent Liabilities: Includes cost of the ‘too big to fail’ guarantee given by government to banks. These liabilities would hit should certain events happen - e.g. a run on banks, a collapse in bank assets, crumbling of the euro...

·        Value of the assets and liabilities of financial institutions guaranteed by government (except for guarantees for special purpose entities).

·        Securities issued by government under liquidity schemes, e.g. repurchase agreements and securities lending.

·        Liabilities of special purpose entities created during the crisis, including those to which certain impaired assets of financial institutions were transferred.

And here is the same information for governments in the European Union as a whole - liabilities exceeding 1.5 trillion euros.



In January 2011 the chief of Barclays, Bob Diamond, said to a parliamentary committee:


"There was a period of remorse and apology for banks - I think that period needs to be over". 


How wrong he was then. How wrong he continues to be.