“That’s quite a comeback by Dame Clara Furse. She was a non-executive director of Fortis when the Belgian bank, in partnership with Royal Bank of Scotland, did the disastrous top-of-the-market purchase of ABN Amro in 2008; now she has been hired to serve as an external member of the financial policy committee of the Bank of England, the body tasked with ensuring financial stability in the UK.

“Of course, Furse is best known for her eight years as chief executive of London Stock Exchange. All the same, you might have assumed that Fortis’s need for a bailout in 2008 would disqualify any of its directors of the 2006-09 vintage from a job on the FPC. The world has moved on, it seems.

“It is easier to understand the appointment to the FPC of Martin Taylor, chief executive of Barclays in the 1990s and a member of the Vickers commission: he’s a top-drawer signing, an independent thinker who speaks his mind, clearly.”

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