"near collapse"

Here is the BBC trying to convince the public that this Labour government didn't completely screw up the Northern Rock debacle. Apparently (my emphasis)

"Chancellor Alistair Darling has proposed new measures to protect savers in the event of a bank getting into financial difficulty. The plans are intended to increase public confidence in the banking system in the wake of the near collapse of Northern Rock in September last year."

Near collapse? How long were the queues of customers to remove money from Northern Rock? How much money did "we" have to pay to bail out Northern Rock? How big an item on the national balance sheet is the Northern Rock? NEAR COLLAPSE?!