As with doctors, the first duty of governments should be to “do no harm”. If they cannot improve the well being of their citizens, at least they should not make things worse. On that basis, the last government should be struck off for the way it treated the City.

It administered large doses of arbitrary taxation (the bank levy) and imposed quack cures for imaginary ailments (ring-fencing). It encouraged regulators to apply tourniquets and then expressed surprise when the circulation suffered. And all the time it gave the impression that it thought the patient was so sick, it required radical surgery.