Oh lucky shareholders. Barclays believes investors should be grateful for the fact that its writedowns on credit securities were only £1.7bn this year. It also wants them to focus on the superior performance of Barclays Capital at a time when, on both sides of the Atlantic, investment banks are warning of tougher times. Sure, Barclays swore blind for months that it did not need extra funding. But now it has decided to raise £4.5bn, it wants applause for avoiding a protracted rights issue while still managing to give pre-emption rights to existing shareholders.

These are the same investors, though, who have watched Barclays’ market capitalisation halve during the past 12 months. That share price performance is barely better than that of rival Royal Bank of Scotland, whose credit losses and ill-timed purchase of ABN Amro forced upon it the biggest rights issue in UK history. It is also 25 per cent worse than the European banking sector average.