Lord Turner says that the City had grown too big and was largely engaged in ’socially useless’ activities that brought no widespread benefit. The comments came in an interview for Prospect magazine. He also said that demands for caps on bankers’ pay were ‘totally unenforceable’ in a global economy.

Instead he suggested that banks could be hit with a huge multi-billion pound tax on their ’socially useless’ activities – he backed plans for a new tax on every transaction to rein in the ’swollen’ banking sector. He said he was prepared to consider a so-called ‘Tobin tax’ – a levy on stock transactions and currency trades.

Named after the economist James Tobin, the tax is intended to put a penalty on short-term speculation in currencies and reduce risky transfers of financial assets.

Is that the sound of loafers we can hear running stampeding for the exits…