"Merve should get a medal!" wrote a reader on The Times website last week on hearing that the governor of the Bank of England had turned down a £100,000 pay rise. Others agreed: "Well done Mervyn." "Good on him!" "A real hero - and from WOLVERHAMPTON!!"

Over on FT.com, the same feeling was expressed in more schoolmasterly fashion. Mervyn King, it said, "merits applause".