Did We Need To Nationalise Our Banks?

There hasn't been enough discussuion about whether the government really did the right thing in nationalising Bradford & Bingley as well as Northern Rock. Were there simpler ways out of the crisis? The Irish goverment has just offered to guarantee the deposits in all its main banks. That has much the same impact, but without all the drawbacks of nationalisations. Or the government could have just offered 25p a share for B&B stock in the market. That would have steadied the price. I have just been looking up the antics of some of the state-owned French banks for a column for Bloomberg. Credit Lyonnais ended up own the MGM film studio - fun for the bankers, but not muhc fun for the taxpayer. I suspect we are going to end up regretting this.