Banks respond to Treasury demands on interest rates

Britain's banks finally responded to growing public and political pressure yesterday to pass on to their customers the full 1.5 percentage point cut in interest rates. After an early morning meeting with the chancellor, Alistair Darling, the UK's biggest lenders yesterday came out one by one and flipped him the bird before running off down Whitehall. By mid afternoon each of the banks that had sought help from the government's £37bn bail-out had mooned in the direction of the Chancellor and invited the Treasury to kiss their lily-white arses. Prime Minister Gordon Brown welcomed the move.