Two men have been sentenced to 12 and 15 months in prison for spraying graffiti on a train.

The actor Christopher Langham was recently given 10 months for downloading child porn off the internet.

A few months ago I read a story in a paper about a man was given an ASBO for stealing 600 bikes from outside train stations in London.

In the same paper a man was given 3 months in prison for taking the rap for his sons speeding fine.

Last night we were watching one of those police documentaries and someone was given 5 months in prison for driving whilst being 3 times over the drink-drive limit.

The ironic thing about the whole Northern Rock saga is that the emergency loan they took from the Bank of England wasn’t actually a loan, it was an emergency credit line – an agreement to lend them money, not actually handing over the cash.

Not only this, but they haven’t had to make use of the credit line – even with customers withdrawing £2bn over the last few days.

Regular readers of Wonko’s World will know that I am a big fan of open government but some things really are better off kept out of the public eye until after the event.  If it wasn’t for the Bank of England having to publish the fact that it had had a Lender of Last Resort request from Northern Rock, the bank wouldn’t be facing an uncertain future where it will most likely be sold for a fraction of its recent value to a foreign bank.

There is also a question mark over whether the Bank of England was right to refuse to guarantee a takeover bid by an English bank because of the problems with the American sub-prime mortgage sector.  Whilst Northern Rock does get a large chunk of its investment capital from that market, the bank was still a going concern – albeit with liquidity problems – and comfortably solvent.  The Bank of England must surely have understood the risk of not backing this takeover?

Northern Rock has had to take out an emergency loan from the Bank of England to restore liquidity.  The bank, which is one of the biggest mortage lenders in England, has insisted that it isn’t insolvent but this hasn’t stopped people withdrawing their savings en-masse, making the situation even worse.

One couple – a pair of former hoteliers – is staging a sit-in protest at their local branch because they weren’t able to withdraw £1m from their account which is, to be fair, an unusual and unreasonable request without giving the branch enough notice to get the cash delivered.

Northern Rock, like all banks based in the UK, will be backed by other private and commercial financial institutions.  If these backers fail to bail out Northern Rock if they do become insolvent, Northern Rock will still be able to get enough cash to satisfy withdrawals by using lender of last resort facilities from the Bank of England.  The Bank of England will automatically lend money to banks to maintain liquidity if they are unable to obtian private finance to do so.

Should Northern Rock continue to have problems with liquidity the Bank of England has the power to administer the bank in the same way as insolvency practitioners administer insolvent companies.

Realistically, there was very little risk to customers of Northern Rock until they started their panic-withdrawals.  By needlessly withdrawing their money from the bank they are depriving the bank of the capital it needs to continue day-to-day trading, making it quite inevitible that the bank will cease to become solvent.  But before this happens, it is highly likely that the Bank of England, in conjunction with other governtment departments, will stop people from withdrawing money from Northern Rock accounts under powers it has to prevent the collapse of banks and serious damage to the economy.

The McCann’s have come home now that they have both been named as official suspects in the disappearance of their daughter, Madeline.

That’s another thing to add to the list of suspicious activity.

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Madeline McCann’s mother is being held by the Portugese police as a suspect in her disappearance.

I haven’t blogged about Madeline McCann going missing because I’m very suspicious of the circumstances and everyone has been so hung up on the poor parents.

That said, the police are suspicious now and most people I think have accepted that there is very little chance of seeing the girl again.  So, I’ll say my piece.

Why were the girls left alone by obviously intelligent parents (they’re both doctors) while they went out to dinner?

Why was the older girl taken and the baby twins left behind?

Why are the parents always galavanting off all over the place without the two kids they’ve still got?

There is something very strange going on with this while sad affair if you want my opinion.  If you don’t … don’t read it.