Is there no limit to what Britain will do to win the Saudi Aramco flotation? It is surely too much to expect that the subject will be raised in the royal audience planned for the Saudi crown prince during his visit to the UK in March. But who knows? Everything else seems to have been tried in the efforts to persuade the Saudis to list the shares in London in what would be the world’s largest-ever flotation.

This campaign has provoked howls of protest and not just from those who deplore Britain grovelling to a repressive and corrupt regime. There has also been some vocal opposition in the City to the proposals to change the listing regulations in a transparent attempt to accommodate Saudi Aramco. Such bending of the rules will damage the City’s standing in the long-run, warn the critics.