But the picture of Armageddon in the housing and mortgage market painted by Steven Crawshaw, chief executive of Bradford & Bingley, at the industry's annual lunch on Friday struck a cord with everyone in the lending business.

And with the spectre of soaring repossessions getting nearer every day, they are right to be concerned. If Crawshaw's prediction of a halving of mortgage lending becomes a reality, it won't just be property prices that slump. Everyone working in an industry even remotely connected to house buying will be hit by a chill blast.

So it is hard to know what was going through the minds of the members of the Monetary Policy Committee when they decided to trim rates by just 0.25%. As we predicted last week, this did nothing to ease borrowing costs.

Did they not hear the International Monetary Fund's gloomy predictions of a 10% fall in house prices in the UK this year? Or did the Halifax's news that property values plunged last month somehow pass them by? A 2.5% price correction is the biggest monthly drop since 1992.

Do you think anyone on the Committee actually has a mortgage? Or knows anyone trying to get one right now? It's all very well stacking it with long-beards in the hope of their having accumulated wisdom during their long and venerable careers, but that doesn't always follow. In fact, the MPC members increasingly bring to mind Lewis Carroll's Father William, out of touch and out of time:

"'You are old, Father William,' the young man said, 'And your hair has become very white; And yet you incessantly stand on your head – Do you think, at your age, it is right?'

"'In my youth,' Father William replied to his son, 'I feared it might injure the brain; But, now that I'm perfectly sure I have none, Why, I do it again and again.'"

Charged debate

I HESITATE to write the next words, because whenever I broach this subject I'm deluged with hate mail from lawyers, who excel at shutting down any debate on their fees.

But I was infuriated to see that when HSBC launches its Rate Matcher loan tomorrow, Scottish borrowers yet again receive poorer terms because of higher legal costs north of the border.

Many Scots believe they pay more to remortgage or buy a property, in some cases double that in England. Their subjective complaint is confirmed week in, week out when UK lenders offer attractive remortgaging terms but Scotland is excluded because legal costs here are more expensive.

So it is this week with the HSBC offer. While borrowers in England and Wales will have all remortgaging costs paid, in Scotland they will receive only a £400 contribution. In other words, the bank can remortgage English customers for £400 but it can't in Scotland.

And costs will rise even further at the end of the year when Home Reports become compulsory.

The English equivalent, Home Information Packs (Hips), have been a disaster since they were introduced south of the border. A friend of mine was aghast when, after shelling out several hundred pounds for a Hip, an inspector spent less than 20 minutes giving the property the most cursory of glances, not entering any rooms but peering in from the hall and landing, entirely missing en suite bathrooms.

The inspector did, however, make a special point of noting low-energy lightbulbs, as though that had anything whatsoever to do with the house. Nice work if you can get it.

Scottish lawyers, a powerful lobby group and fiercely protective of their status, always claim their charges are higher because they offer a different kind of service involving more work. Personally I don't see it.

So lawyers, as you rush to the keyboard to dispatch your angry letters, what we customers want to know is:

1. Are your fees more expensive than in England?

2. How do you justify this?

And, crucially, 3. What do you propose to do to get them down?

Touchy subject

I'VE been under the weather recently. This nasty virus is a mutation of the Midas touch. Instead of everything I touch turning to gold, it gets taxed.

I was incensed at the suggestion from Ofcom that my broadband service would be hit by new taxes to raise extra money for Channel Four.

It is an insult to those of us working in the pay-your-way-or-go-bust world of newspapers.