No change to strategy. No change to dividend policy. No staff relocation or job losses. Shire will thus be transformed, seemingly without pain, from a drugs company registered and taxed in the UK to one incorporated in Jersey and tax-resident in Ireland. One report on Tuesday accidentally coined a euphonious new hybrid term for the manoeuvre – “avoision”. Shire says it is “protecting” its tax position.

Whatever it’s called, Shire’s change of tax residency will be one of the first by a FTSE 100 company that hasn’t comes as part of a wider corporate restructuring. And there is pain: even if the actual (unspecified) amounts saved are small, this is an unwelcome symbol of the UK Treasury’s deteroriating relations with British business and a worrying precedent for other UK-based multinationals.