Five steps to denial

Andrew

The snag is that they require the borrower to have 20% equity in the property. In other words the very well funded HSBC is pinching the best customers from their rivals with greater capital constraints! No doubt helps the economy to some extent but doesn't help the most vulnerable mortgage borrowers (in Labour constituencies?) with little equity and high income gearing and will pile the pressure on to the likes of HBOS, Bradford & Bingley and Alliance & Leicester who will find it hard to respond.

Jan

Is not part of the problem that ever higher government borrowing squeezes out the amount of money available for others to borrow? If I were an investor or bank with money to invest, I would be far more likely to buy government backed bonds than lend to people wanting mortgages in what appears to be a falling house price market. Increased government borrowing in a credit crunch would therefore appear to have the inevitable effect of marking it harder (or more expensive) for others to borrow money.

jan

Is not part of the problem that ever increasing government borrowing squeezes out other borrowers? I know that if I were an investor or bank with money to invest, I would much rather invest in government backed bonds that in people buying houses in an apparently falling housing market. Increased government borrowing therefore means that other borrowers inevitably find it harder (or more expensive) to borrow money.

David

He has, of course, already started to lay out this narrative with the interview granted yesterday to Mr Robinson of the BBC, and faithfully parrotted in later BBC broadcasts.

It is clear that Mr Brown is a careful student of Dr Goebbels, the arch propagandist. It is, I think, worth repeating some of Dr Goebbels` better known remarks and reconsidering them in the context of contemporary government "spin".

"If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe
it. The lie can be maintained only for such time as the State can shield the people from the political, economic and/or military consequences of the lie. It thus becomes vitally
important for the State to use all of its powers to repress dissent, for the truth is the
mortal enemy of the lie, and thus by extension, the truth is the greatest enemy of the State.”

“The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one
fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly - it must confine itself to a few points
and repeat them over and over”

“Think of the press as a great keyboard on which the government can play.”

lola

More comment on the same theme please. Brow - as the most useless, profligate and deceitful chancellor/politician that I can recall needs to be held directly accountable for the shambles we are now in.

Matthew

Basically, what Sir Humphrey Appleby would advise!

Francis

In May 1997 standard variable mortgage rate was 7.25% - today it is 7.25%. How can GB claim to have lowered interest rates?

Ted Tedford

Brown is remarkably reluctant to accept that major decisions he made while running our economy in any way contribute to the 'global financial turmoil' he's always botting on about. But he was more than happy to take the credit when things were apparently going well.

Could we term this Brownian Cause and Effect? It's a bit like Brownian motion: it's unpredictable, but it's not random, as it comes into play only when it reflects well on the government.

Maybe other examples could be found, like the Brownies.

Fraser Nelson

Francis, Brown's tactic is to pick not just the worst year, but the worst month of Tory rule and then (using his "fake proxy" method) misrepresent that as being the norm for the duration of the Tory gvt. RPI was over 10% for just 3 months in 1990, for example. And he/Balls/Darling never stop referring to that (comparing it, of course, to today's 2.2% CPI where RPI today is 4.2%) Both inflation indices are higher than those they inherited. Lies, damned lies and Brownies.

Perry

Yes, yes, yes, - but hardly surprising! Dissembling, smooth, comforting words, and yet another politico wearing an inane grin, typify the brand, and the tosh. And this from a source that boasted prudence!

Just part of the problem is that so many people, for so long, have been willing to go along with the charade, which, after all, was, - and is, nothing but a bubble, - not quite South Sea, but similar in my view, regarding probity and authenticity.

Jason

Analysis of interest rates and tax relief, shatters Brown's tiresome comparison with "15% interest rates under the Tories"

Brown conveniently forgets that when mortgages peaked [for a very brief period] at 15%, they were tax-deductible. Basic rate tax-payers [25%] actually payed rates of 11.25%.

Factor in that on average, during the 90's crash interest rates were about 11%, which means that minus the tax relief, you're looking at real rates of around 8.25%.

Not too far off todays SRV rates of 7.35%, that millions of borrowers face when they come off the cheap fixed deals, unless they can magic up a 15-20% deposit.

Brown is also playing politics with his unwelcome interventions re: the 'independent ' Bank of England's. If the MPC do cut tomorrow, Brown will take the credit. If they don't Brown will blame them for the economic woes.

Martin

@ David - good post

This dreadful man can only do this if protected by the broadcasters.

The few people who actually run broadcast news have kept Blair and Brown in power for over 10 years by manipulating the news.

With the country now being irreversibly ruined by this man, why should the broadcasters be allowed to keep on being able to twist the news?

The problem is the small group of unelected, politically motivated broadcasters who abuse their power.

Broadcast news needs reforming.

David

If you think the 1990s were bad, lucky you were not around in the 1970s. Annual inflation hit 16.7% in 1974, 24% in 1975 and 16.6% and 15.8% in the following two years.

Brown, and the UK, has had an easy ride over the past decade. We all now face the reckoning of lax lending. The crunch is not over, as he seemed to imply in his interviews yesterday; it is just beginning.

Ken

Labour placemen at the license payer's BBC (radio propaganda division) are as odious as the dreadful toxic leader they scrape before - Robinson, Naughtie, et al make very little effort at impartiality. Flood em with loads of emails perhaps?

Ann

Flood them with emails, and post very strongly-worded messages at Biased BBC - it's read by beeboids. Very little to add otherwise to the excellent posts above re Brown's Goebbelsian methods, the BBC's Goebbelsian methods and Brown being the worst - most incompetent, least sane, most cowardly - senior politician I have come across in the last 50 years. I will say this: I never believed a word of all this tosh about 'prudence', 'competence' and 'stability'. It was plain to see from the go that so-called Labour inherited stability from the Tories, and squandered it on ego enhancement and favours for their gang of appalling apparatchiks and hangers-on. It's quite evident when Brown is lying: his lips move.