Anger is a potent force. Right now, there is no shortage of it. The short-selling City “spivs” – read hedge fund managers – who profited from sharp falls in the share prices of banks have become public hate figures almost overnight. Bankers are despised for their greed and regulators accused of incompetence. After last week’s panic in financial markets, Gordon Brown, who proudly proclaimed an end to economic “boom and bust”, is also in the line of fire. For a prime minister as unpopular with voters as he is unloved by his own party, this may be the beginning of the end.

Yet the crisis provides precious breathing space for Mr Brown. Among some in the Labour party, weary fatalism at the prospect of electoral defeat in 2010 has turned to fury. But this week’s party conference will not be the bloodletting Mr Brown’s critics had expected. Even the most die-hard rebels accept that to try to remove the prime minister in the current financial turmoil would be a bizarre act.