UK bailout finalised over tandoori chicken

LONDON: Top British officials, including Chancellor Alistair Darling, devoured spicy tandoori chicken before finalising a whopping 500 billion pound economic rescue package for banks, media reports said.

The operation to rescue the economy commenced at 9 pm on Tuesday with Chancellor's office placing an order with an Indian curry restaurant, Gandhi's, for 32 meals as Darling and his team got ready for all-night negotiations to part-nationalise some of Britain's top banks.

After the debris of his curry was cleared away, Darling ushered chiefs of Britain's biggest banks into the large conference room just outside his office.

Along one side sat the Chancellor, flanked by Nick Macpherson, Tom Scholar and John Kingman, the treasury's three most senior civil servants, a Times report said adding today "also present were two ministers, Indian-origin Baroness Shriti Vadera and Paul Myners, the newly appointed City Minister.

Opposite the treasury team were representatives of all the leading British banks, including the chief executives of the "Big Three", Sir Fred Goodwin of Royal Bank of Scotland, John Varley of Barclays and Eric Daniels of Lloyds TSB.

The negotiation went on for three and half hours and at 1.40 am Darling rose and told his team that he wanted to be able to brief the Prime Minister well before the markets opened the next morning.

At 5 am, Darling decided that the talks had got as far as they could and it was time to sign a deal with Prime Minister Gordon Brown's consultation.

Hours after the government unveiled the rescue package for the British banking system.