Shares carnage goes on

London shares suffered more carnage today as another £21 billion was wiped off the value of Britain's leading firms.

With no end in sight to the stock market bloodbath, the City's blue-chip share index, the FTSE 100, dived 89.3 points, or 2.2 per cent, to 3905.2 - its lowest for six years. At one point it was down to 3860.3.

The trigger for the latest slide, which followed yesterday's 230-point drubbing, was an early indication from the futures market that Wall Street was in for another bruising day.

Stock markets across the world are being hammered by continuing fears about global economic recovery and accounting irregularities at a number of US companies including Enron and WorldCom.

Chancellor Gordon Brown did nothing to steady the ship, insisting that his ambitious public spending plans would not be derailed by the market turmoil.

"Of course we have got to be vigilant and there is a great deal of volatility in world financial markets but the plans that we have set down are for the long term," he said.

"You don't make policy decisions for the long term based on a few minutes of a few hours in the Stock Exchange."