There are not many people displaying sympathy for the banks at the moment.  But on one basis at least, I think some sympathy is fair.  The Government's messages about what it wants the likes of RBS, Lloyds TSB and HBOS to do are impossible to reconcile.  Management must be baffled.  The shareholders who have already lost most of their investment must know that the Government's Janus-like approach is probably continuing to push the share price down.

The Government appears to want the banks who have benefitted from its aid scheme both (a) to recover from their present travails as quickly and effectively as possible, so that it can obtain a rapid, profitable exit, and (b) to undertake uncommercial lending.  

Much of the noise in the press has focused on the restrictions on executive pay which have been demanded of the aided banks - but more significant is the apparent obligation on the aided banks to maintain previous levels of lending.  This is bad policy in so many ways: it risks creating yet another bubble, it simply isn't realistic in the current climate, and it forces the banks to adopt policies which hinder their ability to provide the taxpayer with a profitable exit.  When you add the Government's naked pressure on all banks this week to pass on interest rate cuts (despite the fact that the reduction in their own cost of borrowing has so far been rather smaller), it's clear that Gordon Brown is determined to use whatever influence he can to direct the policies of the banks.

So is a rapid exit what the Government really wants? Is getting the taxpayer's money back as quickly as possible really its goal?  Or will it be quite content to hold its stakes over a longer period of time in an effort to maintain direct influence over the banks and their lending policies? At present, the best that can be said is that its signals point in both directions.  The Government needs to clarify its intentions as quickly as possible.