When leading bankers arrived in Downing Street for breakfast with Gordon Brown on Tuesday morning, expectations were low. The meeting, arranged about 10 days earlier, was billed as an opportunity to provide the prime minister with an update on the credit crisis before his departure for a visit to the US. However, many participants feared they were little more than extras in a photo-opportunity designed to show voters that Mr Brown was personally getting to grips with the crisis in the mortgage market.

Ever since the wholesale markets froze last August, bankers have been pressing the government and the Bank of England to follow the lead of other countries by intervening in the money markets. Despite a few efforts to restart wholesale lending, however, nothing much has been achieved.