Ho hum ...

... just another day in parliament:

the Guardian

eight lenders had so far signed up to the scheme, including HBOS, Nationwide, Abbey, Lloyds TSB, Northern Rock, Barclays and HSBC. Between them they represent around 70% of the mortgage market.

So we have 70% to 90% of the market share of mortgages. Where did that figure come from? Well that would be the Prime Minister himself who said in the Commons,

The lenders include HBOS, Nationwide, Abbey, Lloyds TSB, Northern Rock, Barclays and HSBC — already 70 per cent. of the mortgages that are held in this country.

The figure of 70% is an outright lie. The banks, and by that I mean all banks, not just these eight, had, as of July 2008, £635,130M of the £1,214,148M mortgages held in the UK.

That's 52.2% of mortgages that are from all the banks in the UK. The other 47.8% belong to Building Societies and specialist mortgage lenders such as building society subsidiaries and securitisations. The last time the banks (and again I mean all bank not just the eight mentioned) held close to that market share was 2002 when they held 69.3% of the market.

So, Gorgon Brownshirt lied to parliament (allegedly the one thing you can be held accountable for in that shithole.) And not just a little lie, a great big fuck-off whopper of a lie that that was nowhere near the truth. But it got him the headlines he wanted. No newspaper is going to admit that the numbers were complete bullshit. So the narrative will remain. Will the Tories even challenge him? I doubt it.

What was it that chipmunk cunt was wittering on about? Corrosive bloggers? Yeah, that would be me, diminishing trust in our politicians. It's all my fault.

Whatever.

Update: Dizzy has posted a correction to his figures: it's the value of outstanding mortgages in £M, not the number of mortgages.

Hat tip to dizzy.