Two things have irritated Treasury insiders as they worked on Wednesday’s financial regulation white paper: the universal focus on who will have new powers, rather than what they will be; and the manoeuvring by senior officials in both the Bank of England and Financial Services Authority.

Shortly after Bank governor Mervyn King’s broadside at the Mansion House dinner last month, comparing himself to a priest who could only give sermons and organise burials, one senior Treasury official noted dryly: “Mervyn’s got the theology, we’ve got the detail.”