The Bush administration is not very good at communicating with the public any more, but surely it has never had its foot so solidly in its mouth as this week when it asked Congress to approve a financial rescue package universally known as the “Wall Street bail-out”.

For centuries, the name of the political game has been to dress up the unpalatable with grand euphemisms. In 1215, a weak king and a bunch of robber barons signed a shabby power-sharing deal and called it, pretentiously, the Magna Carta. Now it is a foundation of democracy.