They did get bailed out. Which in many cases means shareholders lost out massively. In banks such as RBS, 0ver 90% of the shares were held by institutional investors, so they lost a whole lot of money. The government bought shares which are now worth (slightly) more than they bought them for - i.e. Gordon has finally invested in something that made a profit! The banks also lost money on having to pay for insurance on debt.

that doesn't mean that as a rule they don't saturate the thinking of the city (mainly as the Unions haven't got the money to do so as they used to - and labour have far less concern where they get their kickbacks from).

Minority governments - I think brown and Blair have shown us how badly majority governemnts can go as they have no need to be accountable to anyone as there are enough back bencher would-be careerists to whip into line to pass practically anything.