Barney Frank, the indefatigable chairman of the House finance committee, may have best set the context for Barack Obama’s executive pay announcement on Wednesday: “People really hate you,” Mr Frank said of America’s bankers. “And they’re starting to hate us because we’ve been hanging out with you. You’ve got to help us deal with that.”

President Obama’s move on executive pay was a long time in the brewing – or long, at least, by Washington DC’s hyper-frenetic standards nowadays. But it came at a good moment to divert attention from his mounting political woes following the withdrawals of Tom Daschle and Nancy Killefer, his nominees for health secretary and White House chief performance officer.