IN August 2007 when Gordon Brown became Labour’s unelected Prime Minister, we saw Northern Rock announce it had run out of money which then became the trigger for the financial crash and the rest, as they say, is history.

It was not surprising that it went bust with 125 per cent mortgages and their merchant division operating the reckless speculative casino-style banking involving the sub prime mortgage market.

Virgin Money wanted to purchase Northern Rock but instead Gordon Brown created UK Financial Investments and bailed it out with tax payers’ monies.

The Conservative party led by David Cameron opposed the bail out, arguing that either Virgin Money should be allowed to purchase it or it should be allowed to fail like America’s biggest bank, Lehman Brothers.

We now learn that the coalition has approved the sale of Northern Rock to Virgin Money at a bargain basement price of £747 million in cash which is just half of the estimated £1.4 billion of taxpayer cash that was pumped into the failing mortgage lender in 2008.

The coalition argue the sale is to prevent the tax payer to more exposed losses and to kick start more competition from the cartel of the big six high street banks.

To date Northern Rock, despite a Labour government bail-out, has shed 3,000 jobs. What was the point of the Labour Government’s bail-out, as the inevitable has happened?

TONY FOX Stockton Heath