Barclays bank didn’t just scam other financial giants

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10. Just like the Fed, the Bank of England wanted lower rates to lessen the impact of the crisis

However, the Bank of England doesn't control LIBOR in the same way that the Federal Reserve influences rates through setting the overnight rate and by other "open market operations".

Therefore, the BoE (and maybe Treasury) did a wink, wink, nudge, nudge with the banks to get them to lower LIBOR. In the US political system this would be "jawboning", a technique where the word is passed by politician to companies to persuade them to do things that they wouldn't do of their own accord.

So yes, debtors were benefited by lower LIBOR, and creditors were harmed, although creditors holding longer term instruments would have benefited from capital gains.

The big impacts would have been on derivatives, and these go both ways depending.

The pre-crisis attempts at manipulation by traders was clearly linked to their derivatives positions.