Oh to be a fly on the wall at the first meeting of Royal Bank of Scotland’s new improved superboard! What with new directors vying to show they’re ready to challenge Sir Fred Goodwin and existing directors out to prove they’re no pushover, the famously forceful chief executive may not get a word in. Janis Kong – still the only woman on the board – will barely be able to breathe for testosterone.

The appointment of three genuinely heavyweight, international, independent directors means RBS has a stronger board. The bank argues the board was already strong. But the two points are not mutually exclusive. In any case, the main charge was not that the directors weren’t weighty enough, but that they didn’t use their weight to counter-balance the chief executive’s own formidable avoirdupois.