That’s the cry uttered by Alex Brummer, the UK Daily Mail’s excellent City Editor on the parlous negotiating position of the London Stock Exchange.

In a rallying exhortation to the Great and the Good of the Square Mile and beyond, Brummer duffs up the instigators of the current situation :

That the LSE should have become a pawn rather than a knight in a fight to unify the world’s bourses under global brands is madness. It ought to be in the driving seat of the consolidation.”

This website says Amen to that.

Consider for a moment the advantages currently possessed by the LSE. It’s Europe’s largest cash market. This week it overtook New York in cash raised for IPOs. In AIM, it owns the most vigorous enterprise market in the world.

Brummer writes : “London’s acceleration away from all its rivals post Big Bang in 1986 and Britain’s emergence from the shadow of euroland is one of the great success stories of the 20th century. … The latest trading statement underpins the case for keeping the LSE independent and British-owned.”

With the Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, and Treasury Secretary, Ed Balls, seeming to climb aboard the bandwagon, Alex Brummer is surely right to say :

“We must Save our Stock Exchange.”

Today the handcuffs come off in Nasdaq’s bid to take the London Stock Exchange. With 25.3pc of LSE shares, the American exchange can bid for the rest at £12.43 per share.

However, sources close to Nasdaq say it can’t afford to buy at that price, so is likely to sit out the next six months. The New York-based company is already heavily in debt and may refuse to gamble, especially as it is now known the British Government intends to legislate to protect London from the onerous American Sarbane-Oxley rules and may pack off any bid to the Competition Commission.

The Times (London) reports : “… there were signs at the weekend that some investors were taking the view that, in the short term at least, the LSE share price could fall in the absence of a bid or an agreed deal. About 12 per cent of the shares are the subject of stock borrowing, a technique that is often used to go short in a share in the expectation of a fall.”

Speculation grew that Clara Furse may seek a deal with a Far East exchange.

The UK Chancellor of the Exchequer, Gordon Brown, has supported his Treasury Secretary, Ed Balls, in underlining his wish to protect the London Stock Exchange’s listed companies from rigid U.S. rules should Nasdaq succeed in its takeover ambitions.

Brown outlined the details of regulations to be added to the new Companies Bill now passing through Parliament for addition to the statute book in 2007.

“The proposals we are putting forward,” he said, “are a reminder of what we as a country are expected to do to ensure there is no doubt as to the regulation of the Exchange. This is a national decision. It is the right thing to do.”

Paradoxically, the new rules could facilitate Nasdaq’s bid by lessening opposition in London to the new owners.

It won’t, however, diminish the sense of sell-out of this central institution to London’s place as a world financial marketplace.

The London Stock Exchange is to be protected by new legislation from overseas regulation in the event of a sale to a foreign buyer.

Times (London) Correspondent Martin Waller outlines the fear : “If Nasdaq, the most likely bidder, does take over, it might one day be tempted to impose the much more onerous regime that governs New York under the 2002 Sarbanes-Oxley Act.”

However, speaking to business executives in Hong Kong, Ed Balls, the Economic Secretary to the Treasury, stated that the government would introduce new legislation to ensure the stock exchange operator would not be bound by stricter overseas regulations if the group is sold.

“The introduction of Sarbanes-Oxley legislation in the US has increased the regulatory burden on companies listed there and encouraged many smaller companies to seek listings outside the United States. London’s Alternative Investment Market has been a prime beneficiary of that move to find an alternative to US-based stock exchanges.”

Ed Balls claimed the government was neutral on the nationality of any future owner of the LSE. Any new regulation would give the Financial Services Authority (FSA) greater powers to assert itself over companies listed on the London exchange.

Balls went on : “The issue was that if you had a foreign owner and that owner’s home regulator starts exporting its rules to London, then the FSA would be able to not let that happen. This legislation will confer a new and specific power on the FSA to veto rule changes proposed by the exchanges that would be disproportionate in their impact on the pivotal economic role that exchanges play in the UK and EU.”

The proposed legislation, if needed, would “outlaw the imposition of any rules that might endager the light touch, risk-based regulatory regime that underpins London’s success”.

Despite claims that this won’t impact on a future foreign buyer, one has to wonder if yet another obstacle is being thrown in the path of Nasdaq in its blatant pursuit of the LSE.