BRITAIN, once known as the workshop of the world, doesn t make anything any more. Instead, all Britain does is buy and sell houses and antiques. Daytime and primetime television reinforces this modern-day madness through programmes such as: How to be a pr

BRITAIN, once known as the workshop of the world, doesn't make anything any more. Instead, all Britain does is buy and sell houses and antiques.

Daytime and primetime television reinforces this modern-day madness through programmes such as: How to be a property developer; and Flog it.

I know one former Labour councillor and self-confessed Gordon Brown supporter, who buys up run-down houses for his son to do up and sell at a profit.

In the United States of America this practice is known as 'flipping'. There is even a programme on US cable TV called 'How to flip, flip this house.'

The recent credit crunch originated in the USA when people with poor credit ratings bought houses with mortgages which they could not afford to pay back.

In Britain the equivalent to these sub-prime borrowers are the one million people who have taken out buy-to-let mortgages on properties they now rent out.

These buy-to-let landlords have forgotten that in times of trouble and hysteria the first scapegoat of do-gooder politicians is the 'blood-sucking landlord'.

During the last residential property slump, which took place in the early 1990s, there were towns in the South of England where all estate agents shut up shop.

This time around the big difference will be that most estate agents across Britain, including those in Wisbech, will be transformed into residential letting agencies.

Producers of programmes such as: To buy or not to buy; Property ladder; and Cash in the attic, will then have to come up with more intelligent alternatives.

JOHN SMITHEE

Kingsley Avenue

Wisbech