Gordon Brown defended his government’s “unprecedented but essential” £37bn injection into Royal Bank of Scotland, HBOS and Lloyds TSB on Monday morning, saying the effective partial nationalisation was intended to be temporary only.

The British prime minister stated that he expected other countries to follow suit. “I think we’ll find in Europe over the next few days ... the same things are going to happen,” he said as eurozone countries were poised to announce measures later on Monday.