Ms Cathy Herbert:

I think that it became clear ... he wouldn't have used that language - "a game of poker", that wouldn't have been his language. They were very serious negotiations. I think that the thing that ... I know that what weighed most heavily on him was what was going to be the proposal for the banks. It became clear pretty quickly that they were happy with our proposals for dealing with the public finances. But what was going to happen the banks ... and that was a game of poker it was, like, it was very difficult. We had had the background of the ECB saying that they were going to stop the ELA, that they were unhappy about the extent of the exposure. But it wasn't clear what solution that they were going to propose. In the end, of course, they continued with the ELA but, I mean, there was ... the proposals for restructuring, for instance, how quickly that would have to be achieved. That was their first engagement, really, seriously with our banking crisis.