At least one bank is hiring and paying bonuses: the Bank of England. Staffing numbers at the UK central bank rose last year for the first time since 1987, by an impressive 6 per cent, while bonuses were increased to a maximum of 8.1 per cent of salaries, up from 7 per cent the year before. In the good old pre-credit crunch days, such piffling sums would have been regarded as an insult by bonus-chasers from the City. But the relative appeal of stable quasi-public sector employment versus the thrills and spills of life in the casino banks – and the even more crisis-prone narrow banks – has certainly shifted in the past year.

A quirk of the Bank’s remuneration policies is that Mervyn King, the governor, does not pick up a bonus. Someone needs to find a way of stopping his belly-aching, however. The Governor, in the Bank’s annual report, has taken the opportunity for yet another swipe at the disposition of powers between the tripartite authorities. The Bank’s evident disappointment with the new Banking Act, which gives the Financial Services Authority primary responsibility for shoving failing banks into the Special Resolution Regime, betrays the extent to which the UK authorities are still at loggerheads over how to guarantee stability in one of the world’s biggest financial centres.