Brown was vociferous in attacking City bonuses. What about his Olympics gravy train? At the last count there were 200 officials in the Olympic Development Authority. The lowest-paid member of its management team is on £243,000, and the highest, David Higgins, £624,000.

They are apparently not up to the job and need a consultancy firm, CLM, with a further 300 staff, to help manage the project, at an astonishing fee of £400m over four years. This firm had the effrontery last year to charge (the taxpayer) a further £10m in staff bonuses on a project that has tripled in expense.

A quite separate body is the London Organising Committee of the Olympic Games, whose head is paid £557,000 and whose members get a reported £1,000 just for attending a meeting. How can Brown insult City bankers when allowing this sort of greed to continue?