UK Financial Investments has been variously described as “Fidelity with nuclear weapons”, “a very shadowy organisation” and “enigmatic”. The truth is probably less sinister.

UKFI was set up to manage the government’s 43.5 per cent stake in Lloyds and its 70 per cent stake in Royal Bank of Scotland on a commercial basis at arm’s length from the government. It will soon take on the government’s other bank holdings – in Northern Rock and the rump of Bradford & Bingley’s that was not sold to Spain’s Santander.