The mortgage surprise.

Peter tells us of Brown's mortgage surprise.

On paper, this measure could go down well with the public - after all, it should limit repossessions as the economy worsens.  But many of Brown's schemes often come with a sting in their tail.  The FT have been told that the cost of this latest will be £100 million, although the overall liability could push £1 billion.  Let's see what more emerges about this.

If I could add a little more about this?

There isn't a celluliod rat in hell's chance that this scheme will cost that little.

Here's why:

The prime minister said the scheme would cover any household which suffered a redundancy or "significant loss of income".

OK most will be saying, that's fine. But it isn't really. Recessions aren't really about more people losing their job. They're more about people who have lost their jobs not being able to find a new one. Nit-picking you might think but no.

The notion that recessions cause job insecurity is bull. Even during good economic times, millions of people are at risk of losing their jobs. On one estimate, one in seven private sector jobs was destroyed each year between 1997 and 2005.

My back of the envelope numbers are that some 2 to 3 million people a year, even in the good times, face redundancy or job loss each year. Yes, sure, most of them get another job pretty quickly but with the terms we've been given for this mortgage guarantee all of them would be eligible.

I agree, I agree, not all of them will try to make use of this scheme but it does show that the projected cost is out, way out. For they've simply misunderstood the job churn that exists in the market anyway.

Being extreme here, £100 million being spent on 3 million eligible people means, umm, £33 each a year. It's either not going to help anyone very much or it's going to be vastly more expensive than that.

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