Sept. 17, 2007--After the mid-August run on the offices of Countrywide Financial in California, the subprime panic hit the U.K. On Friday, Sept. 14, and again on Saturday, hundreds of worried pensioners and other angry clients of Northern Rock, Britain's fifth largest in mortgage lending, lined up and withdrew 1 billion pounds sterling in deposits. Police had to be called in to certain parts of England on Saturday to help control anxious crowds. BBC on Sunday, Sept. 16, claims that depositors withdrew another 1 billion pounds from the bank by internet, bringing the total to EU2.9 billion, before the opening of business on Monday.

Despite efforts by Chancellor of the Exchequer Alistair Darling, who went on television to assure the public that the troubled Northern Rock is "solvent," panic broke out after it became known the bank had to obtain an emergency loan Thursday night from the Bank of England. Informed sources estimate that more money may be withdrawn this week, as about 10 billion pounds is held by customers through postal accounts and can only be withdrawn by post.

India's major financial daily, the Economic Times adds: "Meanwhile, U.K.'s feisty Sunday papers went to town with gloom and doom scenarios for the British economy, ripping into the troubled bank's track record and raising alarm about the impact of 'mortgage madness spilling over into the real economy. Conservative Party leader David Cameron jumped into the fray, accusing Prime Minister Gordon Brown and the Labour Party of recklessly building an economy on a mountain of debt. Writing in the Sunday Telegraph Cameron said that while the trigger for the current crisis was pulled in the U.S., "the gun has been loaded at home." Cameron said personal debt had trebled in the last 10 years to 1.3 trillion pounds, meaning "we now owe more than our national income."