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.

I, like many other people, have remarked over the last couple of months, that the market feels very much like the last days of the Roman Empire, sorry, 2006 with higher and higher prices being driven by a huge wall of liquidity looking to buy what few assets are available.  Clearly a major difference is that this liquidity is equity driven, rather than debt driven, but the effect on pricing is much the same.

However increasingly I am starting to believe that this time it is very different.

If I recall correctly, back in the boom-time mania of 2006 everybody actually believed in what they were doing.  Those nice Candy boys genuinely believed that they could pay vastly more than anyone else for prime sites because they could add more value, Modus thought that the UK needed 35 additional non-prime town centre developments, Peter Cummings honestly believed that every tubby middle aged man he was introduced to was a property genius, Gordon thought that he had abolished boom and bust……

What is very different now is the level of open cynicism abounding in our industry.

No one seems to genuinely believe in the current bounce.  After a bottle of wine (or two) fund managers will admit that it is clearly quite embarrassing to be buying back assets at a premium of 20-30% over what they sold them for less than 12 months ago, despite rents falling; but they are paid to splash the cash.

One agent described doing deals with them “like clubbing baby seals”.

Other, allegedly more savvy, investors are buying on a momentum trade, knowing/hoping, that they are clever enough to get the hell out of Dodge before the next inevitable correction.

However, should there be a double dip, the Nuremberg defence of “I was only obeying orders” or if “I don’t do it someone else will”, will ring doubly hollow and as Warren Buffet would put it, we really will see some horrible sights/sites as the tide goes back out.

I know that this clip has been plagiarised to death, the Ozzie Olympic one is very good, but this did make me chuckle on this cold winter’s morning…

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=jbgwR1pA1k0

It’s 6.00am. May 14th 2010.

Our hero awakes, slightly hungover following his 39th birthday.  Still, he thinks, not too shabby, as he looks down at his six pack, running his fingers through his still thick, luxurious, curly hair.

The radio confirms what everyone had know for some time, Gordon has romped home with a record landslide.  He breathes a sigh of gratitude, thanks to his brave and decisive leadership President Brown is widely acknowledged as having single handedly pulled the world economy back from the brink during the short 2008 correction.

He turns right to his wife and kisses her gently on the cheek, she certainly rediscovered her mojo following the “augementation”, he turns to his left and gently kisses Kate Moss on the cheek, who was he to complain when she had asked for an “open” relationship.

Jogging downstairs into his Belgravia kitchen, he turns on the television.  PestoTV is reporting that New York has once again closed on record highs, this was now getting embarrassing, he would have to set up yet another charitable trust to distribute his massive wealth.

His blackberry watch vibrates, it’s his 8 year old daughter emailing from Oxford university…………………

OK, OK, pretty fanciful stuff, especially the six pack bit, but given the stock markets equally euphoric (possibly unhinged) performance over the last 24 hours, anything seems possible.

Unfortunately, even if the long overdue, but admittedly far reaching steps taken by central governments are successful in saving Western capitalism, most sensible commentators are still predicting a recession worse than the early 1990’s.

But, and I’ll put my neck out, as Churchill said, this may not be the beginning of the end, but may mark the end of the beginning of this crises.