Gordon Brown has strong views on foot-dragging governments that refuse to accept the blame for regulatory failure, refuse to apologise and eventually pay only limited compensation to pensioners who lose money in financial scandals.

Mr Brown made his name in the late 1980s campaigning for victims of the Barlow Clowes affair, accusing the Conservative government of “fecklessness, gullibility and incompetence” and delaying compensation while pensioners died in poverty.