The average house price has risen by an inflation-adjusted 160 per cent over 12 years, according to Nationwide. Owners of London properties have done even better, with a 193 per cent increase. Such inadvertent financial coups confer bragging rights at dinner parties from Barnet to Bromley. Yet the tiramisu-scoffing asset allocators could only realise their swollen capital if they relocated permanently to Barnsley.

The FT's Jonathan Guthrie tells it like it is in a fabulous column, here. It's brave and provocative - given the FT's core readership - while avoiding the apocalyptic suicide-pact attitude found elsewhere.

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