The first sign I had of the coming housing boom was in 1999 when I was cold-called by a bank offering me a mortgage of more than four times my earnings. I immediately had two thoughts: first, that I had better move house quickly before everyone else was offered the same deal and started using their new-found “riches” to bid up house prices. And secondly, that eventually it would all end in misery as interest rates rose and buyers were left stranded.

If the Government was going to intervene in the mortgage market it should have been back then, when the irresponsible lending began. For Alistair Darling suddenly to turn interventionist now, when the housing market is suffering the inevitable consequences of a debt-fuelled boom, is a gesture doomed to failure.

Now the Chancellor is going to meet the banks to “order” them to reduce their mortgage rates in line with the cut in the Bank of England's base rate. They cannot do this, of course, because a large part of their lending is now funded not by savers but by borrowing on the global credit markets. These markets have seized up because nobody wants to pour their money into dodgy mortgage securities that have already lost banks billions of dollars. Not only that: a falling pound makes it all the more difficult to fund sterling mortgages with money borrowed abroad.

The only way that Mr Darling could “kick-start” the mortgage market would be to secure mortgages with taxpayers' money, effectively putting us all in the same boat as shareholders at Bear Stearns. Anyone out there fancy betting the nation's silver to subsidise the fading dreams of self-enrichment of buy-to-let investors? No, I didn't think so.

Mr Darling's predecessor, who used to promise us he would put an end to boom and bust, never raised a finger to rein in the boom. In fact he did much to encourage it, such as by kicking house prices out of the official inflation index. On the way up, Gordon Brown was an ardent free-marketeer; yet as soon as house prices start to fall he reverts to Labour's socialist roots. He is a bit like a human cannonball who is all cocky when the charge is being lit behind his backside, but who, when he is about to hit the ground, suddenly decides a crash helmet and safety net would be a great idea.

Personally, I would let people borrow as much as they want - and face the consequences. But if Government is going to start trying to bail out homebuyers every time house prices decline, it would be better if the law limited loans in the first place to, say, three times a borrower's annual income.

What I can't stand is a government that likes to say “yes” when the banks are saving their skins by saying “no”.

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