John 'Two mortgages' Prescott

One of the titles for a possible post that I scratched out on the back of a matchbox yesterday was "MPs' second homes" (the back of this matchbox featured here, as it happens). This goes back to my realisation that the myriad exemptions from Capital Gains Tax available to second-home owners seem to benefit MPs in particular.

The government is of course desperate to prop up house prices by fair means or foul (mainly foul) to maintain the 'feelgood factor', but for most MPs this is a life-or-death matter - for every £1 that the average house prices plummet (£30,000 since peak), an MP probably loses about £4 (so that's £120,000 each that they've lost so far, or about £10,000 per month) - firstly because most of them own two homes and secondly because their homes are probably worth twice as much as the average.

Little Professor at HPC has uncovered a fine article in The Daily Hatemail entitled "Two-mortgages Prezza: How credit crunch will lose John Prescott £200,000 on luxury London flat" which gleefully illustrates the point.

This is a great template for journalism-by-numbers! You just pick an MP and work out how much he or she has lost on properties since the peak in late 2007! And assuming that the house price crash continues for another two years at least, the stories will get better and better as time goes on ... over 600 MPs @ £10,000 per month for three years ... that's over £200 million pounds they'll have lost in total ... sweet!