As a dog returneth to his vomit, so a fool returneth to his folly

No. Really, just no.

A new help-to-buy scheme aimed at giving first-time buyers who cannot rely on the “bank of mum and dad” is to be introduced in a big policy announcement by Andy Burnham.

The programme, called “Your first home”, is intended to help buyers in England who have a regular income but have been unable to save for a large deposit or don’t have financial support from their family.

Under the scheme, first-time buyers will get a 20% equity loan to help them buy a new-build home, with an initial interest free period and a requirement of a minimum deposit of just 2.5%.

The ghosts of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac look down and mutter shiftily. The problem back then being that too many people who couldn’t quite afford it bought houses. Given the very low deposits required at the time any even slight fall in values put them into negative equity - thus jingle mail. It is worth noting that UK house prices are falling in real terms at present. So, no, just no. As we’ve recently remarked we do not believe the estimations of social value delivered by the last such scheme. On the grounds that they’re only claiming social value as they cannot find one single scrap of actual value to point at.

About the only thing we might be able to look forward to here is Willy Hutton once again insisting upon the creation of Gordon Mac mere weeks before the effective bankruptcies of the American models.

This before we get to the beating heart of the problem here. Lack of supply is not solved by subsidy of demand. That is, in fact, contra-indicated. It is the wrong thing to be doing. Is an error. Is one of those “No, don’t do that!“ things.

Cleaning up dog sick ain’t fun - nor will the results of this be. Don’t. Yes, we are adamant about this. Really. No.