Alistair Darling began his statement on Northern Rock by saying that he had to declare something: “My wife and I have a mortgage at Northern Rock but no saving or deposits.”

The Commons was agog. Mr Darling had said something interesting. The only other interesting fact he has ever revealed is that he has a cat named Sybil. It’s not thought that the cat is involved with the mortgage except, of course, as a household occupant.

It is strange to think about the Chancellor applying for a mortgage. I doubt that he would be refused, no matter what. Imagine being able to put “Chancellor of the Exchequer” on the form in the slot marked “profession”. Peter Mandelson will be jealous.

Sadly, the mortgage revelation turned out to be his peak moment. Mr Darling, after his spurt of madness earlier this week with the PBR, is back to being monotone man. His statement was so opaque that it was like looking into a car with blacked-out windows. Mr Darling couldn’t even bring himself to say what it was about. The statement was entitled “Financial Market Instability”, as if Northern Rock were a mere footnote.

But, as we were soon to discover, this is exactly the case. I’m sure it has nothing to do with his mortgage terms but Mr Darling is a huge fan of Northern Rock. It’s a great bank. Its employees are wonderful people. Newcastle is a great city. Indeed, the entire North East is supercalifragilistic. What happened was not Northern Rock’s fault in any way.

Others are not so blameless. First, there’s the BBC who broke the story and caused national panic. The BBC must never be allowed to do this again. In future, everything should be “covert”. The other culprit is America and its sub-prime mortgage market, which is a blot on the global landscape and responsible for almost all the problems in the world.

The Tories thought that Mr Darling might be a bit to blame for not acting sooner. “Who’s in charge?” demanded George Osborne. Mr Darling ignored him. He was in charge, not least of his mortgage and his cat, but not the global banking crisis which is all the fault of the BBC and poor Americans.

Vince Cable, the Lib-Dem economics spokesman, is often the most sensible person in the room. Yesterday, though, he was a heretic. “This statement reeks of complacency and frankly the government has become complicit in large-scale and irresponsible lending by the same management, even today, in what amounts to little short of a banking scam,” announced Mr Cable.

I waited for the floor to crack, like it has at Tate Modern, and swallow him up. Vince didn’t care as he laid out the case against Northern Rock. “Are you aware that the same lending practices are continuing today?” he demanded, revealing that member of his Treasury team had rung Northern Rock the day before to ask about a mortgage. This was Lord Oakeshott of Seagrove Bay who, Vince noted, “is somebody with good credit standing as you would expect from these benches”. This seemed unlikely but we couldn’t stop listening now. “The terms were quite extraordinary. He was offered 127 per cent of the value of the house, including a roll-up of the arrangement fee, and five to six times his income,” noted Vince, adding, “30 per cent of the loan was going to be unsecured”.

This, Vince carped, bordered on the insane. Mr Darling, though, just looked thoughtful. Perhaps his terms aren’t so good. Sybil should hide. It might be a kick the cat day.

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