Those Who Fail To Learn The Lessons Of History Are Destined To... Do Well Politically

This government refuses to learn from history. Their attempts to inflate another house price bubble is proof enough of that. 

They also seem to be pushing for reducing lending standards. Nick Clegg for example gave a speech on race yesterday in which he pointed to:

evidence suggesting that firms owned by black people are four times more likely than those owned by whites to be turned down for loans.

This is highly reminiscent of similar claims made in the USA in the 1980s and 90s. As it happens the statistics were highly misleading because they did not take into account the applicants credit histories or net worth at the time they applied for the loans. It did however lead to political outrage and the enhancement of the infamous Community Reinvestment Act which pushed banks to make sub-prime loans.

Nick Clegg is the Deputy Prime Minister in a government that came into office because of the economic mismanagement of the previous administration- yet he is in essence trying to force banks to make riskier loans less than a week after Northern Rock was finally sold off.