The anniversary of the Northern Rock crash is just coming up. A Daily Telegraph article analyses the events leading up to it. If money is fed into the land market, for this is what happened, the price will inevitably bubble up. And no regulation will stop it, short of a tax reform which introduces the right form of land value taxation. How long will it take for this to be understood?

Tim Congdon was a member of the Treasury Panel of Independent Forecasters (the so-called wise men) which advised the last Conservative government between 1992 and 1997. He writes “In evidence to the House of Commons in February last year I warned that by the spring of 2008 the Bank of England would be “in quite serious trouble… Why was I so worried in early 2007? And what had the...

The Treasury is preparing a radical rescue plan for the housing market which may involve pumping billions of pounds into the stricken mortgage markets. Alistair Darling, the Chancellor, has asked his leading advisers to investigate a plan to provide government support for lenders until the financial crisis has abated. The proposal is being investigated ahead of the completion of Sir James Crosby’s...