As if listening to them gloating about their sporting prowess wasn’t bad enough, the Australians now have something else to crow about: the stability of their banking system. Not one cent was spent on saving an Australian bank following the credit crunch and all four of the nation’s largest banks – Commonwealth Bank, Westpac, National Australia Bank and ANZ Banking Group – have retained their cherished double-A rating.

Mervyn King, the governor of the Bank of England, said in a speech to Scottish business organisations in Edinburgh in October: "If our response to the crisis focuses only on the symptoms rather than the underlying causes of the crisis, then we shall bequeath to future generations a serious risk of another crisis even worse than the one we have experienced."