Daily Telegraph: "If you think Britain is on its way back to prosperity, think again, it's a mirage"

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"UK Plc has been patched-up but not cured, and no amount of Royal magic can hide that depressing reality.

"The economy is in remission – drugged up on cheap money, subsidised credit, and rock-bottom interest rates – and out of immediate danger thanks to some limited, emergency surgery by the Coalition. But it would be deeply irresponsible to give it the all-clear, and premature to celebrate any uptick in the official statistics.

"Perhaps the most pressing danger is that posed by the housing market. In an act of astonishing recklessness, the Coalition has responded to an overvalued, broken property market by subsidising credit further, nationalising risk, artificially bolstering the number of housing transactions and pushing up prices, while failing to liberalise the market to allow the increase in the supply of properties that is so badly needed.

"No wonder many existing homeowners are feeling happier – boosting their wealth and allowing them to remortgage and spend is clearly at the heart of Osborne's re-election strategy, but it will only make the inevitable day of reckoning even more traumatic."