This email was sent to Money Box subscribers on 12 September 2008

Dear listener,

Money Box is in Newcastle this week because on Saturday it is exactly a year since BBC business editor Robert Peston revealed, at half past eight in the evening, that Northern Rock had gone to the Bank of England for emergency funding.

Although Robert stressed the bank was not bust and money there was safe, the next day the queues stretched round the block as frightened depositors waited to take their cash out in scenes that had not been seen in the UK since the 19th century.

We’ve come to the North East to see what effect the crisis has had on local people one year on. Because Northern Rock was more than a bank – it was a provider of jobs, a big donor to charity, and a sponsor of the rugby and football clubs. Now it is a nationalised bank which owes the taxpayer – you and me – £14.5bn.

On Saturday you can hear what Northern Rock’s executive chairman Ron Sandler, who was brought in after the crisis hit, says about the future and how he’s progressing with the plan to eventually move the Rock back out of public ownership and into the private sector again. Hear too how he reacts to criticism of the way it is pursuing people who borrowed more than the value of their home and now can’t pay it back. And whether it will ever again be the rock the community in Newcastle can rely on.

We’ll hear from local people who have been affected by the bank’s troubles – some surprising views too; we talk to a man about the true impact on the region, and discuss with a financial adviser how people with mortgage or savings problems can find a solution.

Of course we’ll also be looking at the implications for the rest of the UK. Has banking changed forever? Has the government learnt how to deal better with similar crises? And where are we in dealing with the credit crunch?

Incidentally, mentions in the press of that phrase “credit crunch” reached a new record in August. It appeared exactly 3,000 times in the UK’s 24 daily and Sunday newspapers. That is 97 every day – four per publication and well above the previous record set in April. My favourite this month so far is this headline from the Daily Express, “In a credit crunch I’m banking on marrows” (1 September 2008) which tempted readers into Dominic Utton’s allotment diary.

Hope you enjoy Money Box from Newcastle on Saturday at noon and repeated on Sunday at nine pm. And there’s a podcast, lots of links, previous programmes, transcripts, and loads of other stuff on our website - bbc.co.uk/moneybox.

A new feature this week will be Money News. Every Wednesday my colleague Samantha Washington will present a round-up of some of the latest money news that's broken since our last broadcast. It’s in vision and only on the web.

Best wishes,

Paul

Because I am in Newcastle I shan’t be in the studio for the TV taster on BBC Breakfast of what’s in the programme. Back to normal next week.

 


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