There are at least a dozen ways that the government could defrost the UK mortgage market. It could order the Bank of England to start lending, guarantee asset-backed bonds issued by banks, or set up a British Fannie Mae; heck, the government could just hand out loans direct to housebuyers. Yet all of these measures would subsidise and distort the market, so even as mortgage approvals fell to a new low on Tuesday, Sir James Crosby, leader of a government review, was right not to propose any of them.

Yesterday’s Bank of England figures on mortgage lending were dire: the number of mortgages approved to buy a new home fell to 36,000 in June, down 68 per cent on the same month in 2007. The great boom in British house prices appears to be over – to the dismay of politicians and mortgage lenders, who enjoyed the boom immensely, and want the government to do something, anything, to bring it back.