Warm words today from David Cameron on mortgages have a distinctly hollow ring. They also demonstrate he hasn't given up his love of flip-flops.With Dave's economic record, it's a bit rich hearing him demand measures to protect people with mortgages.
Myself and millions of other mortgage holders remember the disaster last time he was allowed anywhere near the Treasury...
On Black Wednesday, Dave was at the heart of the Treasury, as Special Advisor to the bungling Tory Chancellor who disastrously announced interest rate increases of five-per-cent in a single day.
By contrast, thanks to Gordon Brown's delivery of a stable economy, for the past decade we have enjoyed interest rates that Tory Chancellors can only dream of: a third of what they were in the dark Tory days of boom'n'bust. And these days, when changes are necessary, they are usually a difference of just a quarter of one per cent - not FIVE per cent in one day.
Despite Tory scare-mongering predictions of economic collapse round the corner, interest rates are still under six per cent - not the 15-per-cent Black Wednesday rates. And remember, the last change was down, not up!
Meanwhile, David Cameron, the man who wants to run Britain still can't add up. The unexplained £6 billion black hole in his latest tax and spend promises and unfunded tax cuts would risk a disastrous return the dark days of boom'n'bust.
And the flip-flops?
Today, Cameron called for extra measures to protect people taking out mortgages.
Yet just a few months ago he heaped praise on a report by his Conservative Party Economic Policy Commission which recommended scrapping every regulation protecting people taking out mortgages.
What David Cameron called a great report in August said this on Page 59:
We see no need to continue to regulate the provision of mortgage finance, as it is the lending institutions rather than the client taking the risk.In October, Georgie Osborne told the Tory Party Conference that the report by John Redwood was a blueprint to cut government regulation, planning restriction and red tape.
So Dave, is it less regulation or more...?
Flip-flop, flip-flop.
UPDATE: I see today's FT agrees with me and headlines Dave's latest u-turn....no comment!
3 comments:
I am sure people prefer flip-flopping to being stuck under a rock. (Northern Rock.)
Glad you mention Northern Rock. Cameron even flip-flopped here - first saying the Government was right to make lending available, then distancing himself from what he at first backed...!
I'm with Vincent Cable on Cold Sick/Northern Rock.
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