Who will renew Hexham politics?: Robert Peston takes Lloyds to task

In a 25-year career of taking an unhealthily close interest in banks, I have very rarely encountered results as appallingly bad as those published by Lloyds this morning.

The bank says the loss was £6.3bn - which it sees as marginally better than the notional loss of £6.7bn that it would have reported in 2008 had it owned HBOS for the whole of that year (it in fact acquired battered HBOS at the turn of 2009).

Arguably, however, the loss for 2009 was almost double the number highlighted by Lloyds at £12.4bn: there is a case for ignoring a £6.1bn credit taken by Lloyds from a revaluation of some of HBOS's assets and liabilities.

But the big horror, of course, was the charge for loans and investments that have gone bad: an awe-inspiring £24bn, up from a merely horrific £15bn in 2008.

Lloyds' implied excuse is that the bulk of these losses stemmed from the insanely-poor loans to companies - especially property companies - that were made by HBOS.

But - to coin a phrase - you are what you eat. And Lloyds did not have to swallow HBOS: the bank, led by the chief executive Eric Daniels, chose to buy it.

Daniels remains chief executive.