I fear that I may have been drunk at 7.15 on Thursday morning.  Frankly its the way I can rationalise the fact that George Osborne seemed to come across quite well on Radio 5.  That being said, its usually the sight of the smug, chinless, Bullingdon Boy that causes my right hand to involuntarily start searching for something to throw at the television.

I was clearly still inebriated when I reached the office, as I shared this revelation with Morgan, who looked at me strangely.

My growing despair at politicians of all political hues was healthily restored when I thought through Gideon’s new policies in respect of housing, which is clearly more than he has done.  The sheer lunacy of putting £250m aside to “help” people ram themselves to the gunnels with debt, just as interest rates are about to rise, to buy something that they can’t afford, whilst at the same time loosening planning policy to bring prices down over the medium term, beggars belief.

Token gestures such as First Buy or 1p of a litre of petrol, smack of the sort of grandstanding that Gordon Brown used to love, before he left to start a career in light (and I mean very light) comedy and are nearly as socialist.

We live in strange days.

The most left wing American president in my lifetime lurches so for to the left that he declares open warfare on the banks; the reaction from our labour government is appeasement, George Osborne agrees to join in the crusade unconditionally.

You would have thought that British politicians would have learnt recent lessons about declaring unswerving support for our American friends when they get all jingoistic, but plus ca change, as the cheese eating surrender monkeys would say…..

No one knows the details that these hostilities will take;  but it won’t be the shock and awe of our bonus tax, rather, it seems, more the returning of the lucrative pastures of “prop trading” to hedge funds and private equity that had been annexed with the overthrow of Glass Steagall Act in 1999.

But there is always the danger of the law of unintended consequences, or to overdo the military analogy, collateral damage.  Although, what is “prop” trading?  Put simply it is using the bank’s cash to bet alongside, or even against, the activities of it’s customers.  But it’s never that simple, General Volcker’s surgical strike at casino capitalism, could also nuke quite legitimate activities that are needed now more than ever to work through all of this bad debt.

For example, if a bank is banned from private equity participation, how does it undertake and manage a stake acquired through a debt for equity swap?  Where does this leave a bank who wants to take non-performing property loans onto it’s own balance sheet?  If that is not “prop” trading what is?

I am sure the next government will think these issues through before sending the boys over the top, but their biggest enemy could be the two banks it already largely owns.