This moronic mortgage scheme can only end in tears

Société Générale’s Albert Edwards thinks the government’s ‘Help to Buy’ scheme is one of the stupidest economic policies he’s ever seen. It’s impossible to disagree with him, says Merryn Somerset Webb.

Regular readers will know how we feel about the UK government's increasingly desperate attempts to prop up house prices in order to keep our banks looking vaguely solvent.

They will also know how we feel about the proposed Help to Buy scheme which effectively forces the taxpayer to partially underwrite the mortgages of people who wouldn't ordinarily be able to borrow money at all. It is the kind of thing that can only end in tears.

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Merryn Somerset Webb

Merryn Somerset Webb started her career in Tokyo at public broadcaster NHK before becoming a Japanese equity broker at what was then Warburgs. She went on to work at SBC and UBS without moving from her desk in Kamiyacho (it was the age of mergers).

After five years in Japan she returned to work in the UK at Paribas. This soon became BNP Paribas. Again, no desk move was required. On leaving the City, Merryn helped The Week magazine with its City pages before becoming the launch editor of MoneyWeek in 2000 and taking on columns first in the Sunday Times and then in 2009 in the Financial Times

Twenty years on, MoneyWeek is the best-selling financial magazine in the UK. Merryn was its Editor in Chief until 2022. She is now a senior columnist at Bloomberg and host of the Merryn Talks Money podcast -  but still writes for Moneyweek monthly. 

Merryn is also is a non executive director of two investment trusts – BlackRock Throgmorton, and the Murray Income Investment Trust.