Last week Eliot Spitzer, New York governor, created the New York State Commission to Modernize the Regulation of Financial Services. A year ago, such an ominously titled commission would have terrified US financiers, who probably would have viewed it as another blast at their business from the so-called “sheriff of Wall Street”.

But times have changed and so has Mr Spitzer. The former attorney-general, who prosecuted abuses by securities analysts and mutual funds, is no longer a sheriff and his newest tactics are not what the president of the powerful US Chamber of Commerce once called “the most egregious and unacceptable form of intimidation we’ve seen in this country in modern times”. Mr Spitzer has beaten his subpoenas into ploughshares and his private sector enemies have become public sector friends. The highest-profile members of his new commission will be senior executives from the same financial institutions he once targeted.