Personally, I think it's a bit of self indulgent grandstanding because I just don't think banks were or are making £80-100K unsecured loans to young asset-less Wannabes unless they had a parental guarantee and mum and dad's house as security. Maybe I am missing something, but wouldn't mum and dad still have to honour their contractual obligations to the bank even if junior decides, scratch that, intentionally plans from the outset, to take the WWW exit plan to financial bliss?
Up until about 8 months ago HSBC were offering unsecured loans of £75,000 to cadets who had secured a place on the CTC Wings Cadet scheme.