Giving credit where credit isn't due

It was one of the most dramatic headlines of the year in 2005 - "personal debt in Britain has reached the trillion-pound mark."

The fact that we were in hock to the tune of £1,000,000,000,000 should itself have rung some warning bells - but the story was buried inside the national dailies.

Memories rolled back this week when a day after Sir Mervyn King, governor of the Bank of England, admitted he didn't shout from the rooftops about the looming crisis, a minister then started blaming borrowers.

Blaming borrowers? Defence Secretary Philip Hammond told the Torygraph: "People say to me, 'It was the banks.' I say, 'hang on, the banks had to lend to someone'."

At the time the Bank of England itself didn't have any teeth to bite back at the banks - it's getting them back from next year - but the banks certainly weren't backward in coming forward when dishing out the dosh.

A couple of days after that headline I went to my local Halifax branch. A queue stretched out the door.

It took a while for us to even get through the door and we were surprised to see all the cashier desks were open and busy. Busy, that is, asking every single customer if they wanted a loan.

The reaction was usually the same - "Loan? Why do I want a loan?" And the cashier would say something like "Well, have you been thinking of updating your car, or going on holiday?"

The puzzled customer would take a while to think, and usually say yes, OK.

Then the cashier would have to set up an appointment. Hence, the blinking great big queue.

When I eventually got in front of a cashier I carried out my business, and she asked if I wanted a loan.

I smiled: "Well, no. And don't you think it's a little irresponsible pushing people into even more debt when we've seen headlines this week that we all owe a trillion already?"

I kept smiling. But the bank went quiet. Very quiet. And the poor lady's colleagues all turned to us.

She flustered. I asked: "Have you been told by your bosses to ask everyone if they want a loan?

"Have they got so much cash they don't know what to do with it?"

She continued to fluster. So I continued smiling and left.

And I smiled yesterday when Mr Hammond claimed those who took out loans, spent on credit cards and accepted large mortgages were "consenting adults."

He added: "People feel in a sense that someone else is responsible for the decisions they made.

"Of course, if banks don't offer credit, people can't take it.

"(But) there were two consenting adults in all these transactions, a borrower and a lender, and they may both have made wrong calls.

"Some people are unwilling to accept responsibility for the consequences of their own choices."

Some people - like the banks and the government.