When Jack Morgan, son of Pierpont Morgan of investment banking fame, appeared before a US Senate subcommittee in 1933, his opponents staged a stunt in which he was photographed with a female circus midget sitting on his knee. Union critics of private equity recently paraded a camel outside the church where Damon Buffini, the Permira managing partner due to appear before a parliamentary committee today, worships.

The senate probe into Wall Street’s excesses grilled the most powerful financiers of the day, put their business dealings under intense scrutiny (they uncovered, for instance, that Morgan and his bank partners were paying little if any income tax), and triggered reforms that changed the US regulatory landscape forever. Listen to the rhetoric from the parliamentary hearings and you’d think British politicians were planning to do the same.