Ed

Thanks for your kind words.
The point is not what the hungry are worrying about, but what the not hungry are worrying about.
I expect your fixed rate product is due to or has recently exprired.

Elizabeth , London, UK

Peter in London, why should those of us without debt subsidise those of you who have? Those of us who have been frugally prudent throughout Brown's bubble years should not have to bail out the spendthrift.

As for a 'little extra' inflation, we have already endured 10%+ price rises in food and fuel in the past four months ever since the December rate cut, since when Sterling has dropped by over 10% against the euro. This is hurting everyone's income, particularly pensioners and the low paid. Why should we have to endure any more, just to maintain the property bubble?

Economic growth will not return until house prices are back to sensible affordable levels requiring only modest levels of borrowing. Cutting the base rate will make no difference to mortgage rates. The BoE should concentrate on its true remit, which is to protect Sterling and bring down inflation.

Paul, Coventry,

Cutting interest rates by 0.25% is effectively still an increase in interest rates, with most loans increasing by 0.5% over the past month. It is also a case of fiddling while Rome burns. The pound will fall sharply if there is a UK recession, unemployment will increase, and recent immigrants will leave in droves. Government finances will deteriorate markedly. Already, many people are reducing or stopping altogether their pension contributions, so vast problems for the future are being created. Yet all of this misery can be avoided by decisive action by the BoE. If part of the problem is caused by too much debt, then a little extra inflation will erode that debt like nothing else. The Bank's obsession with inflation is bordering on the pathological. Do we never learn from history, recent and remote?

Peter, London, UK

Perhaps we are heading back to the time when only those with a steady income and could afford the payments were allowed to take out a mortgage.

TURPIE, GLASGOW,

Elizabeth - get over yourself. The writer was using the first definition you listed ("An accute insufficiency") in an absolutely correct manner. Stop being so precious, I suspect those in hunger have better things to worry about than this.

ED, London,

A notice has just appeared on the C&G Web site stating that loans for new build properties over 80% ltv will not be approved,restricting their lending even more.

Robert Storey, Pangbourne,

OK , a few points. First, there is a "surge in demand" for mortgages for some banks, largely because the number of mortgage providers has fallen sharply as has the number of different mortgages forcing people remortgaging to migrate to the larger banks still offering mortgage products. Its not a surge in real demand overall.
Second, the FSA will have no recourse over the banks on the TCF provisions for charging a normal margin for mortgage lending which is above the base rate. Banks exist to make money, the stupidity in the past was lending below base rates i.e. below the rate at which they themselves were financed.
Thirs, the banks don't have plenty of money, the dividend hikes are a short term attempt to boost confidence and stop their shareprices sliding further.
Fourth, shareholders arent the banks' customer, they are the owners.

greg , london ,

The banks categorically DO NOT have plenty of money. They have lots of festering bad debt, but not money as in cash. Many banks have found themselves unable to finance new mortgage applications, which is why they are withdrawing products - they claim that this is because there are "surges in demand", but where are these surges in demand for mortgages coming from? That line is being used as a cover because the banking community can't accept the truth that the cookie jar is empty.

paul, London, UK

The Financial Services Authority has recently introduced its "Treating Customers Fairly" initiative, where mortgage brokers have to prove they are indeed Treating Customers Fairly.

I wonder if, given should the Bank of England reduce it's interest rates (and hence the cost of money to lenders will fall- as shown with the 3 x oversubscription of the BoE's weekly auction), and banks continue to ramp UP the cost of borrowing to consumers, the FSA may act?

The problem is of course, Banks have 2 customers; one is the unsuspecting punter whose 4.39% 2 year fixed rate is coming to and end, who will now be faced with 2 year deals at 6%or more with sensible fees, and of course their Shareholders...

More distressing is to the the Federal Reserve slashing interest rates one week, then throwing $100bn at the problem the week after.

While the BoE sits on its comfy chair, with a nice cup of Earl Grey, "deliberating" rather than acting...

Tim, Bath,

recently STR'd... sitting back and watching everything unfold.
In 2009 we will be looking at a totally different landscape...
property prices will have dropped between 30 and 40%.
We will be looking at low interest rates, and low property prices... a winning combination.
In the words of the famous fast food giant...
"I'm lovin it"

Guy Beckington, London,

"....In another worrying trend, banks are also reporting being wrong-footed by the speed at which companies are failing to meeting interest bills on loans. Default rates by medium-sized and large companies "picked up more sharply than expected over the past three months," the Bank said, adding that default rates were expected to rise further in the next quarter. ..."

But that's ok. There won't be any higher unemployment or inflation or insolvencies in Prime Minister (Crash Gordon) Brown, Unelect's fantasy world.. This won't upseat his cherished housing 'market' (oops sorry for such read election meal ticket)!

Austin Tassletine, South West, UK

Definitions of 'famine' - 2 definitions - WordNet

"famine (n.) an acute insufficiency
famine (n.) a severe shortage of food (as through crop failure) resulting in violent hunger and starvation and death"

I find your use of the term 'famine' to describe the current mortgage climate at best innapropriate, at worst extremely offensive.

Granted; the mortgage market is currently far less in choice and higher in cost comparatively to this time last year.

However, you use a term that depicts starvation and desperation: People dying due to a denial of circumstance or nature of a basic human need, to describe the cost of mortgages going up!

This is irresponsible sensationalist journalism, and extremely offensive to those who suffer real food poverty today both in this country and wordwide, of whom there are far too many.

This is not famine, this is discomfort to the middle classes.

Elizabeth , London, UK

Rubbish the banks have plenty of money - they have all increased their dividends recently and not one bank has cut the bonuses to its senior staff - short of money then do the senssible thing and scrap the dividend and the bonus payments. Simple As.

Harry, warwick, warwickshire