The  £250bn insurance of Lloyd’s toxic assets is another con that the tax payer will pick up billions of pounds of losses for. Lloyd’s are paying for the insurance by printing £16bn worth of shares and selling them to the government. They then give the government back this money to pay for this insurance! In return we pick up the bulk of any losses of £250bn of Lloyd’s “toxic assets”.

Yes you have got it in return for owning their losses we hold a bigger share in bank which is worth less and less each day. They are promising to lend more for mortgages over each of the next two years but for an an amount only equal to half of the total amount that was lent out in January 2009.

Hidden behind this was future job losses in Scotland. HBOS corporate lending arm – the source of much of the recent losses – based in Edinburgh will be run down. Branch rationalisation will focus on Scotland where there is a big overlap between Lloyd’s TSB and Bank of Scotland. Finally, they plan to close the investment arm of Scottish Widows, which Lloyds own,  and have their fund management operation in London, Insight, run all funds with the loss of 500 jobs in Scotland.