Earlier in the month, the Bank of England looked set to give us all a Christmas bonus by cutting the interest rate by 1.5%.

The chancellor summoned the heads of all the major banks and mortgage providers to Number 11 and stressed they should all pass on the full cut to try to liven up the pre-Christmas economy.

My mortgage is with one of the big high street names that found itself in more financial trouble than the average man in the street can even begin to comprehend.

The government, using my money and yours, bailed it out.

The government then told it to cut mortgages in line with the rate cut set by the Bank of England.

So I sat back and waited for the lovely letter to appear through the letterbox telling me just how much better off I was going to be.

It duly arrived at the end of last week and I immediately rang to query the figures.

The decimal point was all wrong.

Had my interest been cut by 1.5%? No!

No the decimal point had slipped around somewhere on an errant computer and my mortgage had been cut by 0.15% so instead of getting a big pre-Christmas bonus I am now better off to the tune of about two decent bottles of Chablis a month.

Clearly the government is not controlling my mortgage provider as much as it should be!

If the interest rate goes up, my mortgage goes up by at least as much, if not more.

But in the last six to eight weeks the good old Bank of England has wiped away two whole points from the interest rate.

My mortgage providers knocked nothing off the first time and have now reduced it by a measly 0.15% this time.

And as my elected representative within the halls of power at that particular financial institution I expect Mr Darling to take up the case on my behalf.

I have, of couse, written to him.

But I doubt I will get a reply.

If every single mortgage customer with the same company as me – apart, of course, from those enlightened few on tracker deals – has written to the chancellor he isn't going to have time to get round to us all.

Every time I have the radio on, Mr Darling is either telling an oil company to slash prices following the fall in the price of Brent crude or is telling shopkeepers to cut prices from the start of next week because of the cut in VAT of 2.5%.

If I was in charge of a company he was talking to on either point, I'd tell him to get his own house in order first!