As safe as houses ? Boom and Bust ?

In many parts of the country house prices are heading south, just a interest rates - fuelled by border line panic by the lenders not the Bank of England - head north.

Now the BBC reports that the ex building society - Northern Rock is applying for emergency help from the Bank of England.

The only question that remains is how Gordon Brown intends to do his sloping shoulder trick with this one. The words "Tory boom and bust" seem to have been missing from his vocabulary of late.

Will he cut and run to the polls before it gets too bad - or perhaps there's nothing to worry about after all. ( Best to make sure you don't have much more than the compensation limit in any bank savings accounts just to be sure ).