Back in the autumn of last year, on the transatlantic flight back from his trip to New York and Washington, Gordon briefed the Lobby in the back of the plane (not that they would bother to tell you this) that there was no sub-prime problem in Britain. Not only did sub-prime start in America, it ended in America, according to the Prime Mentalist.

Now the Bank of England estimates that there are a million homeowners in negative equity, they forsee the possibility of that number reaching two-million. Gordon says he will bolt the lock now the Lloyds TSB horse has bolted and he is going to stop banks offering 100% mortgages.

Who offered 100% mortgages to low income-earners in the first place? Gordon did. He had a sub-prime lending scheme of his own called Home Buy Direct. No deposit was required, and it didn’t matter if you could not afford to repay the full cost of a mortgage for the property. Low-income earners were effectively encouraged by the government to buy over-priced new builds. Repossessions are now running higher than in the 1990s, with low income earners are trapped in negative equity as unemployment heads towards 1980s levels…