The official rationale for the intervention was that more bank lending was needed for economic recovery and that more capital was required to support the risks associated with extra lending. If the banks themselves were not prepared to raise more capital, politicians and regulators would bully them into it. Indeed, the government would ride roughshod over management's plans and the shareholders' rights and force banks to comply with its diktat.

No previous government had behaved so arbitrarily or with such vindictiveness towards one of Britain's leading industries. Within hours of the announcement of the supposedly world-saving package, the stock market value of the banking sector had collapsed amid wider financial turmoil. In November and December, share prices and housing values carried on falling, destroying confidence, wealth and spending power, foreshadowing the dreadful unemployment figures of early 2009.

Brown's supporters might nevertheless assert that the regulatory intimidation and capital injections have restored banks' ability to lend. Do official statistics validate this claim? Every month, the Bank of England publishes a figure for the stock of banks' unused credit commitments. The peak of £320.3 billion was in June 2007, but even as late as August 2008 it was still at £298.2 billion. The big plunge, to £268.5 billion in January 2009, followed the Brown package.