Mr. John Hurley:

The issue I think that arose ... first of all there were three key messages ... messages coming through the discussions right across Europe. The first message was, really Europe can't have another Lehman's. The second message was, countries really should stand behind their banks. This was the common view and the question you're asking me really is a variant on the second, countries stand behind their banks. When you were looking across Europe at that time and listening to the conversations the thing that struck me most forcibly was that the nation-state mentality had suddenly resurrected itself and that the community communautaireview had weakened, and so countries standing behind their banks meant action by countries. So the issue really was whether we were reading properly that there was no pan-European initiative around - was there anything around that our Government could be part of? And the discussions and conversations and notes would be about me checking that. I knew myself that there was no European initiative, on the basis of what I was seeing and hearing, but I did want to check that.