Mr Justice Geoffrey Vos, former Bar Council chairman and one of the most esteemed lawyers of his generation, was in provocative form when delivering last week’s KPMG lecture on ‘The Role of UK Judges in the Success of UK plc’.

Lamenting the UK’s penchant for self-criticism, he observed: ‘We are always the first to say what is bad about our society; for example that the August riots exemplify the problems in society about which nothing is being done, rather than, as they probably would in France and Germany, that such unrest was the one-off product of a long summer and some disruptive elements’.

Like Barclays’ Bob Diamond, Sir Geoffrey also appears to believe the ‘time for banker remorse’ is over. ‘We must… limit the way in which we chastise [the banks] for what they do wrong, and take more trouble to support them in what they do right,’ the judge declared. Perhaps so.

Alluding to ‘global economic paranoia’, Sir Geoffrey contrasted a recent 5% one-day fall in the FTSE with the trend-bucking announcement by Deloitte of an 8.4% hike in global revenues.

Another arresting comparison this. Deloitte is one of KPMG’s bitter rivals among the Big Four beancounters. It’s a bit like eulogising Wayne Rooney at a meeting of Liverpool Supporters Club.