Some people really should try to understand a little more about such critical issues before making claims like this.
Firstly, there is absolutely no grounds to claim "To buy something at a higher price than the market is offering a bailout."
Moreover to assert "How much of this comes back to the political parties as donations from the banks" is stupid.
The bottom line is that notwithstanding our banks and financial institution are among the best capitalised in the world, they need to rely on the global financial markets for part of their funding needs.
With indiscriminate fear gripping the global markets many of the traditional funding sources are currently closed.
Hence our domestic financial institutions need to raise a greater proportion of funds locally.
So what is so terribly wrong with the government of the day using taxpayer funds to support AAA backed residential mortages? It is not as if they are saying to the mortgage lenders " we will take off your hands all of your low-docs. inferior credit quality loans" as is happening overseas.
Seems to me that some people are never happy - the government does nothing and the lending institutions pass on the full cost of borrowing, with the consequent criticism of doing nothing to protect the borrowers, or they take the proposed action, and are accused of bailing out the banks, political favouritism etc.