Ms Cathy Herbert:

Well, this is the point. I mean, what ... as Kevin Cardiff points out in his evidence, the previous weekend there were discussions going on at official level. I mean, clearly if you say there are discussions going on at official level, then you are in ... if you say that then, you know, the momentum builds up and the Government is about to enter a bailout.

So there were reasons not to go public on that. We were operating in a very, very difficult environment because there was briefing in various European capitals, given by unnamed sources from institutions in Europe and it was extraordinarily difficult. I mean, the normal rules of negotiation were set aside and essentially we were being media-manipulated into a position.