Simon is seething at the behaviour of the banks. Can they continue to take taxpayer's money with one hand and run abusive tax avoidance schemes with the other? And how should we stop them?

Let us begin here by quoting from a recent survey of over 6,000 members of the FSB, conducted by the FSB’s Professor of Small Business Alistair Anderson. 18 per cent said they had seen an increase in bank fees : 33 per cent said their banks were imposing a change in their financial arrangements which made them less well off – such as setting new lending conditions with increased charges and rates, reducing overdraft facilities and requesting more security for loans.

A third of small firms said their bank was less helpful now than it had been before the credit crunch began. Fairly typical that, everybody wants to lend you money except when you need it. And I recently had a credit card offer with an interest rate of 32.5%.

Don’t we all love the banks ?

First they stole our money with their tax schemes and the 30% interest rates on their credit cards, then they frittered it all away. Then we had to pour more money in to bail them out, and that has disappeared too.

A few years ago a client of mine from Zimbabwe expressed astonishment to me that the UK economy seemed to be doing so well when there was nothing underpinning it : but then we came to the conclusion that it’s like fairies, and as long as you believe in it it will continue to thrive. And then along came the sub prime mortgage crisis and we didn’t believe any more.

Yes, we were all complicit : we took our consumer goods and our foreign holidays on tick. And very much yes, the government believed in fairies with the rest of us and left it up to the self styled masters of the universe to run the economy. So there’s been aiding and abetting, but that should not distract us from where to point the finger.

Vince Cable, who seems to be the only politician with any grasp of the situation, says British taxpayers are being asked to underwrite Barclays' loans. I believe full disclosure of these documents, showing how Barclays use tax havens for tax avoidance, would be in the public interest. Banks use the finest legal brains money can buy to avoid tax, but HM Revenue & Customs is underpaid and overstretched, so it is far from a level playing field.

The message may be getting through to some. Royal Bank of Scotland says it has disbanded its department responsible for creating tax avoidance schemes. "The idea that we could take support from the Treasury with one hand and somehow pick their pocket with the other would be wrong on every level," said an RBS source.

I think what we need as a new anti-avoidance device is some kind of corporate tax ASBO to stop the banks from going to places where they might get into trouble. And we need a publicly owned bank to do straightforward things – probably a Post Office Bank (though watch out because my Post Office credit card is operated by the Bank of Ireland, which has some form itself in these matters). Ideas as to how we might design this would be welcome.