Eliot Spitzer, governor of New York and former scourge of Wall Street, is fond of quoting the aphorism of Louis Brandeis, a former Supreme Court judge and social campaigner: “Publicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants.”

Mr Spitzer arrived in Albany, the state capital, this year promising to bring the same reforming zeal to his new post as he did to the job of New York attorney-general. He had scared the life out of Wall Street banks by holding press conferences at which he quoted damning e-mails, and pressured enterprises Marsh & McLennan and the New York Stock Exchange to ditch their chief executives.