Just in case you hadn't noticed, Barclays is going round in circles. It doesn't seem to know whether it should be bought or whether it should make a big acquisition. Just to make life even more complicated, there is a race to succeed Matt Barrett, the timid chief executive.

What a pity that Barrett has failed to deliver the goods. When he arrived in 1999, he certainly looked the part and made most of the right noises. However, since then, what has he done? Buying the Woolwich Building Society and a neat little bank in Spain is unlikely to cause sleepless nights among the competition. When you think of Sir John Bond at HSBC or Fred Goodwin at Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS), Barrett simply isn't in the same league.