Is buying individual U.K equities too risky?

Is buying individual U.K equities too risky at the moment? There has been bid action at Detica and Acambis, which has been very helpful. However, for large sectors of the British stock market such as banks and housebuilders where volatility has been very high and the movement has been down. It would have been very difficult to time when to buy Alliance and Leicester and then not to hang around for the Banco Santander paper.
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I wish my few stocks would go up a bit. I look at their prices in the paper and wish that I bought a tracker fund and then could stop worrying about equity investment.

Are we going to get any Spanish lolly?

Are we going to get any Spanish lolly from the Banco Santander paper bid for UK mortgage bank Alliance and Leicester? Santander might end up bigger in the UK than in its home market of Spain. OK, that might be unlikely but the car manufacturer Volkswagen
has a presence in Brazil similar to the size of its operations in Germany.

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With the share bids for Abbey National and Alliance and Leicester, Briitsh shareholders are accepting a major player in the UK banking market. Does it matter
if a foreigner holds a certain percentage of this market? Would the authorities be
so welcoming if some foreign group took over HBOS (Halifax Bank of Scotland)? Or perhaps the British authorities will give
Sr Emilio Botin, Santander chief, a knighthood for rescuing two mortgage banks?