There are plenty of reasons to worry about the nationalisation of Northern Rock but the new blow it may deal to the UK’s reputation as a centre for financial services is not one of them.

The government’s decision to wrap the troubled bank in its sweaty embrace cannot be positive. Nobody likes to see the rights of shareholders overridden (although this was no mugging, as I point out below). But apart from spamming a new set of gloomy headlines round the world, the Treasury’s announcement of “a temporary period of public ownership” for the Rock does not leave the City any worse off than it was in September.