Having last month waxed philosophical about an absence of moral purpose in banking, Lord Myners, Gordon Brown’s City minister, has turned to the more concrete matter of how best to encourage more active investor oversight of companies. Lord Myners’s suggestion that long-term shareholders should be granted greater voting rights than short-term speculators has been criticised as ill-advised and unworkable. Still, his intentions are good.

The financial crisis has revealed that markets can appear to favour speculation over long-term ownership – hence Washington and London’s recent investigations into curbing speculation in the oil markets. It has also revealed that equity sometimes is not as solid as it might appear – hence the banking crisis. Restoring confidence in the system will require investors who take more than just a passing interest in the long-term health of the companies they own. The question for policymakers is how best to encourage this.