Dunlending

Mutuals are catching the banks illsBUILDING societies, a Victorian invention to let modest folk save money to buy a home, once seemed as safe as the proverbial houses. No longer. Since the Dunfermline building society, Scotlands largest and in 2007 the countrys 12th biggest, collapsed on March 30th and was rushed into a merger with giant Nationwide, they look as iffy as property prices.Alex Salmond, the nationalist first minister of Scotlands devolved government, was quick to smell a plot by Treasury ministers to strip his country of its last bit of financial grandeur. Why, he asked, were they giving the Nationwide building society GBP1.6 billion to ease its takeover of the healthy bits of Dunfermlines business (GBP2.4 billion in savings and GBP1 billion in mortgages) while nationalising GBP884m in ailing commercial-property and subprime loans? Why not hand Dunfermline the GBP60m-100m the Financial Services Authority (FSA) said would keep it in business?