From GMTV’s sofa - credit crunch star Martin Lewis

So, I was watching Lorraine Kelly interviewing Keanu Reeves on GMTV (can that actor's face get any purer? Like a palimpsest, forever wiping itself clean) when the channel's money expert Martin Lewis came on to talk about Woolworths and I knew I was in the presence of a bone fide TV star.

Have you heard of this guy? He's the one who insisted we should refuse to pay bank charges, and even posted a super-useful template letter on the internet detailing precisely how to demand your money back from the thieving bastards. Anyway, whoever thought of putting Lewis on the television was having a good day, because he is genius breakfast TV casting: possibly lightly gay, irreverent without ever dropping his manners, not remotely nervous.
 
Here's a typical Martin exchange:
 
Presenter Ben Shephard on the sofa some time in November: "Money is high on the agenda at the moment. Martin is here and he says we need to start guarding against the Evaporating Equity Trap. What does it all mean? What does it all mean?"

He delivered his bad news so tactfully, like the good teacher on the doorstep

He turns to Martin, who is sitting looking serious in a purple striped shirt, the kind of shirt a person could wear on both a date and an employee evaluation after a good year.  
 
"Evaporating equity is happening to millions of people across the country without them realising it," says Martin, firmly. "I guarantee that the equity you thought you had in your home is no longer there." His face then softens to an expression of intense sympathy. "I now need to explain to you before I go on, about the Loan to Value Ratio."

Turning his body micromentally towards camera he socks it to us: "If you have an 80 percent mortgage I'm afraid you now need to ... low LVR ... in the 94th percentile..." (look I can't remember the words exactly but you get the drift) "... and you must understand the next element of this because this is only bash number one and I'm afraid this is bash number two..." The point being, he delivered his bad news so tactfully, like the good teacher on the doorstep telling you the kid has talent but really must stop peeing on the floor. 

And I've noticed that ever since he's been on the channel the other presenters have been infected with his good sense. Last week Fiona Phillips picked up a Christmas catalogue and flicked through it, stopping on a page and saying: "Look, there's a tree for seventy quid here, comes in a pizza box. All you need to do is open it and shake it down!" She obviously really dug this tree, and was about to start rhapsodising, but suddenly stopped herself and said "...But we are having a frugal Christmas..." and looked a little regretful - then spotted Martin and straightened her back with a new purpose.

She was surrounded by bits of tinsel at the time, and the set looked like it was about to fall down in that nice spit-and-sawdust way of GMTV, as though the whole show is in fact broadcast out of Sainsbury's Homebase. She was also wearing an entire lipgloss. Mind you, so was Martin.

(I used to have a slot on GMTV years ago talking about movies, and let me tell you, the people who make breakfast television run smoothly are the make-up artists. They are the portal through which you must pass. They usually say, "Well I'm just going to do something very natural, very light and young, very nude", and then come at you with a trowel. But because my slot was relatively late in the morning the make-up girls would have time to try things out on me, shaking glitter onto my decolletage, sticking fun little disco hearts on my cheek bones, teasing my hair into Escher-like complexities so I would go on air looking really bloody weird. But it's a girl's world, GMTV. Running itself via the very feminine principle of the permanent apologetic tizzy. The make-up girls seemed like the only people in the building who hadn't left the iron on.)

Then this morning Martin fronted the Christmas cash clinic.  "This is the Christmas cash clinic by the way!" says Fiona standing in a cupboard with three women in satin blouses from the Citizens Advice Bureau speaking keenly into phones under a little poster on the wall covered in sparkles saying CASH.

I’m telling you, the man looks properly worried about your kitchen

"It's Christmas and we know a lot of you are worried about how you're going to cope, but Martin, hopefully, is going to... well... are you going to shine some light on the whole affair?"
 
Martin looks calm. Shine a light baby. "My aim is to help people survive and thrive through Christmas," he confirms, and Fiona visibly blooms.  
 
"We've had calls here about repossession, Martin! And redundancy, and what's going on with MFI!"
 
Martin turns to the camera, taking control utterly. "If you paid by credit card then that's safe under the section 75 credit protection that I'm always talking about…."  
 
"So, no kitchen for Christmas?" says Fiona, upset. Martin looks hurt too, I'm telling you the man looks properly worried about you not getting your kitchen because of the thieving MFI meltdown bastards. 

"If you're buying big gifts for Christmas over a hundred quid do it on a credit card and PLEASE pay it off in full so there is no interest PLEASE." He presses his index finger and thumb together like a conductor reaching the end of symphony and congratulating the first violins. The whole country pulls up the duvet and reaches for a Jaffa cake.  
 
In America they have a guy called Jim Cramer on CNBC with a show called MAD MONEY, and he comes on, raging and alive, even the hair on his arms raised to an electric fuzz, and yells: "Call the credit card company and say 'I am in a jam and I need a break and I need to stretch out the terms'. Listen up people - you need to stop being poor to get rich! And they will listen! CALL THEM. TELL THEM. I will make that call for you! We can change everything RIGHT HERE."
 
But I still prefer Martin. ·