Responsible lending is headline news now.

I agree. This is what they should have been doing for years. I doubt many people would genuinely qualify for a mortgage now.

Thirded.

My only concern would be how much of this is Torygraph scare-mongering, how much is overly-cautious banks and how much is the market resetting itself to where it should have been all along?

I think that this is primarily the market getting back to what it should have been all along, Though if Torygraph readers are unable to get a mortgage now it will be blamed on the banks or Labour even though the reader is probably up to their eyes in debt and their credit rating is shot to pieces. Banks may be overly cautious now, but I would be as well. The housing market is falling and will for a few years so that will mean big losses for the banks if they are too generous now. So why be reckless, just because politicians lend it does not mean that it is sensible. Over the next twenty years the UK will be cutting debts and the biggest is mortgage debt, so that will take time. Also the press never let the truth get in the way of a good headline.

I call headline fail. Should read:

"Debt-addicted UK goes on ‘mortgage diet’"

How about "debt-addicted UK goes on half rations"

I have enough for a 20% deposit on the house that I want to buy, but anything even approaching a decent mortgage deal requires 25%.
The old story again - if you've got money you get looked after, and the rest of us get reamed.

Actually in a stable housing market I would support lower deposits for first time buyers only. Though they should be on a repayment mortgage and all remortgages should require 25% or more.

the banks are still holding/have massive sub prime debt and the way they are going to recoup these losses is to raise interest on credit cards/available loans/charges/services/anything else they can think of or get away with, while hoarding/withholding funds

QE only allowed the investment banks to make any gains as they soaked QE up
QE was never ever allowed too reach street level

all lending by the banks, regardless of reasons or spiel, is secondary ...

Yes and but lending that excess money back to the government at higher rates than they get borrow the money for. They can actually make a profit with no risk or work at all.

They will carry on with more QE even though it will have no effect. I actually expect our economy to slow down as a result of the coalitions cuts.

the economy is already slowing down
but sadly the major knock on effect is equity

none or negative equity will not only create a second dip but make it far deeper then the first
and the only winners are credit cards and short term loans as interest rates on these will become far far higher ...

The problem is that the value of homes is way above their intrinsic value. So if the price drops fast then people will simply not be able to remortgage or move. They will simply default.

The real issue is the speed of that fall in value. If the price falls slowly the same people will probably default but over a period of time. That is what the government wants. It allows people to use that time to rebuild their finances. If everyone defaults immediately it will destroy the banks, meaning that they will have to be nationalised even if temporarily. If they default over the next decade the banks can cope with it, especially if they ramp up rates. That is politically more acceptable to governments particularly right wing governments who abhor nationalisation. The alternative is politically unacceptable to right wing governments. So expect the governments to spend billions and even trillions to slow that fall.

This creates another problem for future generations, which many governments have been proclaiming as the reason for the austerity measures. They do not want to leave the future generations with our debts. Though by leaving them with a property bubble they are still leaving them with a higher cost of living, it is just that they are not as directly responsible.

I think you've got that the wrong way round to be honest. The right prefers to let Market forces take hold. Don't forget that the last government were the ones to not let the correction take hold. That said, maybe it's proof of the fact that they were not particularly left wing.

Generally you are right. They like markets to be markets with little or no regulation. Though when their backers get wiped out there will be a "public interest" bail out. So they dump the losses on the tax payer and keep the profits. If they really had been market orientated they would have let the banks collapse. Nationalised them temporarily panicked every other bank into rebuilding their capital and slashing credit facilities. It would have been a sharper recession, but the government would have been able to re-capitalise the banks, with them under state control, break them up, and get rid off the bonuses, which is still a thorn in the government. Though the problem is the closeness of banks to politicians.