Stephen Hester could hardly have been blunter. As he surveys the scorched earth left by Sir Fred Goodwin, his predecessor at the now state-controlled Royal Bank of Scotland, Mr Hester has yet to spot a solitary green shoot. RBS lost nearly £1bn in the first quarter: the result would have been far worse had it not been for the unrepeatable performance by its global banking and markets division. Mirroring strong first-quarter results at investment banks, income from this division doubled, driving overall revenue growth up 26 per cent to £9.7bn.

Strip that out, though, and the picture was less rosy. Net interest income fell 3 per cent as margins were compressed by low interest rates, rising funding costs and the need to boost liquidity by holding more low-yielding gilts. RBS remains far too big to fund with comfort, with an unchanged loan-to-deposit ratio of 150 per cent.