The Governor of the Bank of England, Mervyn King, has announced that banks will be allowed to use a wider range of collateral to back loans from the central bank. Among the assets banks can now use are "vague insincere promises", "IOU's scribbled on the back of a packet of Rothmans" and "ill concealed threats".
Takeup for the new loans has been predictably high, with HBOS immediately securing £3.5 billion on the basis of a promise that "we'll pay it back as soon as us giro gets here after Easter like" while failing to maintain eye contact with the Governor. Lloyds TSB took up a loan of £2.4 billion backed by a scribbled IOU on a torn out page of the Racing Post while HSBC walked away with £4.1 billion following a visit to the Governor by their head of security who after pointing out "what a nice bank he'd got" suggested repeatedly that it would "be a shame if it went up in flames, if you know what I mean?"
King defended the changes and pointed out that the loans were necessary to finance essential wild gambling by the banks, without which huge bonuses could not be paid with the resultant hardship for Porsche dealers, who were already reeling from Ken Livingstone's new £25 a day git tax on their products.
