It seems every profession has a small circle of characters who basically commands things. In most industries, you can fit them round a table. After all, in mature economies most markets are dominated by a handful of operators – if you assemble the owners, founders and heads of those companies, it would often be fewer than 20 people.

There is mutual respect and occasional co-operation between these bosses – but is there plotting against the consumer? Adam Smith famously said in The Wealth of Nations: “People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices.” Antitrust regulators clearly buy this philosophy. I am not convinced there is this inevitable inclination to plot.