Clearly in certain societies, in parts of southern Italy for example, there isn't even the pretence of dressing up what is essentially gangsterism as some sort of political movement, it is sheer criminality. Doing business on a straightforward basis is nigh-on impossible, because business has co-operated with and tolerated criminal behaviour for so long that it is now embedded in their way of life. And clearly that is enormously damaging on many levels.

MB: If you go and see the brilliant Gomorrah, you'll see the fertility of the rackets that the [Neapolitan mafia] Camorra make, which are just extraordinary. It's not just disposing of toxic waste on behalf of crooked factory owners, it's the haute couture industry, they seem to have got a lock on that too.

LJ: The bottom line is that if you're just talking about criminality at any level being involved in business, business becomes dramatically less efficient. And therefore it's less productive for everyone in the entire community, including, obviously, shareholders. So, to take the easy option is, even in a purely commercial sense, a bad idea, because everyone needs a rake-off. So investment is squandered, resources are misapplied, and it's just a really unproductive way of carrying on. And therefore a sensible rule of law is not only morally and ethically advisable, it's actually commercially advisable.

MB: One heard all the time, when Gordon Brown was Chancellor of the Exchequer, at the beginning of every year he would announce his triumphs in the war on terror. But then one evening I listened to the BBC's The Financial World Tonight, with Fran Abrams, a very in-depth report on terrorism and the financing thereof. And it showed how so many of the measures that the government had introduced to stop illicit flows of money in and out of the country were pitched so high in terms of the sums involved that it didn't actually impact on terrorist activity, certainly not any jihadist activity in this country, where the cost of the operations, you could put it on your credit card quite frankly, your stolen credit card in their case. I think the cut-off point was around £8,000, and most of these operations cost far less than that, so they were just totally below the government's radar screen, as they ruefully acknowledged.