At a time when the powers that be, from politicians to the Bank of England, finally seize the truth that this calamity is too grave for posturing and grandstanding, the banks couldn't resist showing their true colours.

Naturally, it would have been nicer if our betters could have been born to superior perception, rather than had it thrust upon them. But when officials at the Bank of England finally bit the bullet, in what could only be seen as a humiliating U-turn, surely the mortgage banks should have done the decent thing and swallowed the medicine too.

Am I alone in wondering what has happened to bankers? During the last recession, they moved mountains to protect housebuyers by pegging mortgage rates below the prevailing base rate. Savers didn't like it. But it's swings and roundabouts in this game of money. At some stages of the cycle, savers win; at other times, the interests of borrowers should be paramount.

But this common-sense approach to looking after customers has gone. Instead, the banks shed crocodile tears about savers today. Well, it just won't wash. It's hardly a secret that most savers sit in accounts paying derisory rates, languishing well below base rate. I never see savings institutions wasting tears on the poor savers then, as they rob them blind.

So now interest rates are back to the level of the mid-1950s. It was a time of great social and political change as Britain emerged from post-war austerity. Something tells me that today we could be at just such a turning point.

But sadly, the agony of economic incompetence has a long lead. The latest insolvency figures make shocking reading, with their implications for rising unemployment. House prices continue to tumble, with the Halifax reporting a further 2.2% drop in October. During the last recession, unemployment continued to rise for two full years after rates were cut sharply in 1991. The jobless numbers didn't peak until 1993, and they didn't drop below a million for nearly another 10 years. On this basis we should expect unemployment to continue climbing until 2010. And they may not reach acceptable levels again until 2019.

Home Report hell

THOSE whom the Gods would destroy, they first make mad. The Bank of England's base rate cut to its lowest level since the early 1950s shows it believes the housing market is close to self-destruction. For the Scottish Government to choose this moment to introduce the potentially most value-destroying change imaginable into the house purchase process has to be madness on a scale which would defy even the most malicious of our celestial tormentors.

From December 1, Home Reports will be introduced in Scotland, primarily to cure a barrel of ills that the market resolved a few years ago.

At the very least these reports will introduce hundreds of pounds of extra costs, when raising the bare minimum essential to move house can be nigh impossible. This will force more families into repossession, or encourage hard-pressed homeowners to hand back their keys and walk away, because they don't have the money to commission a report and try to sell their way out of trouble.

But the damage only begins there. To introduce a compulsory valuation into these packs when surveyors are already suffering acute panic attacks over where they should pitch values can only subject house prices to further slash and burn.

When house prices are falling, valuers' primary concern is that they do not leave themselves open to litigation from mortgage lenders. So they err on the over-cautious side.

What chance does anyone have of achieving a decent price for their home when the law obliges them to include in a pack they themselves hand to a potential buyer a document pricing the property at a fraction of what the seller believes it to be worth? Negative equity will soar.

There will be even more catastrophic news for families forced to move in a hurry if the worst predictions of job losses following restructuring at the banks and other financial services companies are realised. The Edinburgh property market, already awash with unsold homes, will be flooded.

It is currently taking more than three months on average to find a buyer, yet after three months these valuations are worthless, because no lender will accept them. More valuations will be required, more hundreds of pounds wasted.

But the truth is few lenders will accept them anyway in the current nervous market, and will only trust their own surveyor's report.

I know it's late in the day, but I urge readers to write or e-mail their Members of the Scottish Parliament urgently and demand they at least put back plans for this piece of insanity.