The BBC website today helpfully publishes the full text of the government statement on the nationalisation of the Bradford & Bingley bank and the sale of parts of the business to Spanish banking giant Santander.

However, one has to read well into the document before bumping into the "elephant in the room" – the invisible partner of the quadupartite regulatory system that no one seems to want to acknowledge. But, the footprints are there, with the statement reading …

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Great news. The US House of Representatives has rejected the Bail Out bill, or in other words it has thrown out a socialist solution in favour of a market solution. The British government has put forward a similar scheme here, when parliament meets again it should reject government plans and allow the market to solve the problems.

It appears to me that this government are doing as they please and then checking in with the EU.The EU has kept a rather low profile as far as I see on Northern Rock,not wanting to make a bad situation worse.I doubt they will really object strongly to the B&B takeover either,as long as they are "kept in touch" with decisions taken by Mr Brown.

Are they deliberatley ignoring(bending) their own competition rules to give Brown&Co a lifeline without which Labour would be sunk at the next election?

The last thing they would want is a backlash against the pro EU Labour party.

The good thing is the 90+ Democrats who voted it down. A third of Republicans bought into the solution.

I can't see the same thing happening here. There is already a consensus across the parties that we need more state.