Then there is the background noise, the tone set by the government. The announcement that Britain is open for business is difficult to square with some of the noise coming out of government offices. George Osborne says that he learned on a recent visit to America that the anti-business background noise coming from the Obama administration had had a real effect on boardroom attitudes. Indeed, even the President now concedes that some of his crowd-pleasing anti-business rhetoric contributed to businesses' decision to sit on $2 trillion in cash rather than to commit it to expansion and job creation.

Nevertheless, the (anti-)business secretary, Vince Cable, calls bankers "spivs and speculators" and then expects them to make more loans to small businesses and mortgage-seekers, loans that are riskier than most and, should some go wrong, would bring the wrath of Cable down on the bankers' heads. The Prime Minister and the Chancellor vacillate between praising the City's contribution to the British economy, and demanding that the compensation of these contributors-to-prosperity be restrained. If, as the governor of the Bank of England believes, bonus constraints are essential to the future soundness of the banking system, then do limit them: clearly, finally, and certainly. No more speeches necessary. Remove the uncertainty created by daily escalation of hostilities, and let the bankers get on with lending — and to creditworthy borrowers, rather than to those targeted by the government as victims of lender hostility. If there is a concerted refusal to lend to creditworthy small business borrowers, introduce more competition into the banking system as part of a long-term growth strategy. Restructure the major banks if that is what Sir John Vickers's Independent Commission on Banking recommends, instead of relying on ad hoc deals with the banking industry, deals that are likely to result in risky lending in order to reach government targets

Finally, we have regulations. Not for the CEO of a large firm any concern about regulations and red tape: his staff can manage any problems, which have the pleasing ancillary effect of serving as a barrier to the entry of new competitors who have neither the resources nor the inclination to cope with the stream of regulations that remains in full flow.

The government, as ministers keep reassuring us, is asking agencies to repeal one old regulation in order to get one new one approved. Nice try, but that does nothing to relieve the uncertainty that drives small businessmen mad: lurking out there in the imaginings of some regulator is a new cost to impose on business. You can bet that any regulator worth the admiration of his peers will gladly trade in an irrelevant old rule for a costly new one. And you can bet that testing the cost of a regulation against its benefits is a no-win game for deregulators. If deregulation is to happen, ministers will have to be forced into a daily ritual: the repeal of one regulation introduced by the previous government every day — and no (as in not any) new regulations that are not signed off personally by the Prime Minister, who has said he is up for the task, but has yet to get a grip on his ministers' and their officials' production of new regulations.