Second the credit crunch had started to hit home and for the first time in more than a hundred years, there had been a run on a British bank with the extraordinary sight of queues of savers lining up outside branches of Northern Rock to extract their cash.

BBC: Political review 2008: Conservatives

For if workers see their real wages fall at the same time as the credit crunch is constraining their ability to borrow, consumer demand will suffer.

ECONOMIST: Buttonwood: A gap in the hedge | The