It’s a deceit on British taxpayers, not Lloyds shareholders, who are getting a free and gloriously pimped ride.

" When compared with bonds, Arnott points out in a forthcoming piece for the Journal of Indexes that US stocks have now underperformed Treasury bonds since 1969. Very few savers actively putting money away today started much before 1969. Most of them did so during a period when the cult of the equity held sway. For this whole generation, that belief in equities has proved badly misplaced. Various long-term surveys show that there have been very long periods of underperformance by equities in the past."