Gordon si è risentito

Gordon Brown today said he was "angry" with the Royal Bank of Scotland over a strategy that has left it with potential losses of £28 billion, as the Prime Minister defended the Government’s second attempt to rescue Britain’s struggling lenders.

Mr Brown said this morning that Britons had a right to be furious at "irresponsible" behaviour which saw RBS spend billions last year acquiring ABN Amro, the Dutch bank which had exposure to US sub-prime mortgages, as well as investing directly in the American home loan market.

“Yes, I’m angry about what happened at the Royal Bank of Scotland," he said.

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Mr Brown added: "Now we know that so much was lost in sub-prime loans in the US and now we know that some of that was related to the purchase of ABN Amro, I think people have a right to be angry that these write-offs are happening and that these write-offs were caused by decisions that were made about international investments that were clearly wrong investments.”

RBS confirmed this morning that it will report a full-year loss in February which could hit £28 billion - with £20 billion of the total related to the acquisition of ABN.

It is the biggest-ever loss in British corporate history and is nearly double to current £15 billion record set by Vodafone, the UK telecoms giant, in 2006.

RBS also confirmed that the Government is set to increase its stake in the bank from 58 per cent to 70 per cent. Last October, the Treasury sank £37 billion into the banking sector – the Government’s first attempt to stabilise the market – with RBS taking £20 billion of funding.