Cable spoke after Liberal Democrat leader Nick Clegg and treasury secretary Danny Alexander tried to play down his criticism of the Help to Buy scheme.

The business secretary said it had taken years to get out of the financial crisis:

“We must not now settle for a short-term spurt of growth fuelled by old-fashioned property boom and bankers rediscovering their mojo. We’ve seen it all before.”

Picking up on David Cameron’s labelling of him as a ‘Jeremiah’, Cable continued:

“You will recall from your reading of the Old Testament that Jeremiah was right. He warned that Jerusalem would be overrun by the armies of Nebuchadnezzar.

“In my own Book of Lamentations I described how Gordon Brown’s New Jerusalem was overrun by an army of estate agents, property speculators and bankers.

“The problem we have now is that the invaders are coming back. They have a bridgehead in London and the south east of England. They must be stopped.”

However, Cable acknowledged the need for more houses.

“If sustainable recovery is to be achieved we must meet the enormous challenge of house building,” he said.

Cable has repeatedly warned that his own government’s Help to Buy scheme could cause a housing bubble.

However deputy prime minister Clegg defended the scheme as a way to help creditworthy borrowers onto the housing ladder.