Yes and no. The earlier WSJ article cited a quote from Mervyn on his willingness to let financial players take their lumps that he made BEFORE the credit crunch got serious. The Fed shifted its views markedly, and one could therefore not assume that the BoE’s posture was unchanged.

Now later comments have pointed out that the BofE may not walk its talk, but the news hook was that the submission highlighted differences in approach among the three major actors. That to me is newsworthy, particularly since the Journal has more pages to fill than the FT or NYT and thus is assumed by many here to be more comprehensive.

The Bank of England relaxed restrictions on the amount of money financial institutions need to hold with the central bank, encouraging them to lend more to each other as it tries to reduce overnight borrowing costs.

Commercial banks, which agree to hold a specific amount of money at the Bank of England at the end of each month-long maintenance period, can now undershoot that target by 37.5 percent and still earn interest at the benchmark interest rate, the central bank said today. That compares with a previous restriction of 1 percent.

“They’ve been more generous than we thought,” said Philip Shaw, chief economist at Investec Securities in London, who expected the bank to widen the range to 26 percent.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=a4OX6orwTj88&refer=home

“Reading our main competitor is like standing upon quicksand: one never knows precisely where the facts end, and self-serving opinion begins.

“Read The FT – Because life is too important to NOT know the Truth…”

On August 1, 2007, before the opening of business in New York City, Dow Jones and News Corporation issued a joint press release announcing that they had entered into the merger agreement.

On October , 2007, News Corporation and Dow Jones entered into an amendment to the merger agreement to modify the treatment under the merger agreement of certain vested stock options and certain outstanding awards granted pursuant to the Dow Jones Reuters Business Interactive, LLC Long-Term Incentive Plan, which we refer to in this proxy statement/ prospectus as the Factiva LTIP.

Another provision gives News Corp the right to delay closing until August 1, 2008 if they encounter regulatory issues.

I’ve indicated often that the WSJ is already biased, and not just on its editorial pages. Imagine what it will be like when the Murdoch era begins.

This an example of why, in the hands of Rupert Murdoch, like Fox “News”, the WSJ is essentially just a political rag, and one’s attention should be turned to entities that still attempt actual journalism, like the FT.