Brown tells Northern Rock to start lending

So Gordon Brown has decided to use Northern Rock to further government policy and no longer operate at arm's length.

The timescale for this is very Gordon Brown sloooooow - £14bn by 2011.

Maximum Loan to value will be a soviet style imposed 90% even though commercial lenders have decided that 90% LTV is too risky with house prices falling by over 1% a month.

It will be interesting to see if they restrict any of their other criteria, such as multiples of income. With a quick look at their calculator, it is still possible to borrow over 4 times joint income.