The Vickers Commission, in recommending that the retail function of banks be ring-fenced from the investment wing, offered a reminder of the risk still posed by bankers whose folly helped bring the country to the brink of ruin. A study from the Institute of Fiscal Studies, published simultaneously, gives a warning that George Osborne’s austerity measures will cut families’ living standards by an average of 10 per cent over three years. The less well off will be worst hit, while the richest will lose just 4 per cent of income as a result of tax and benefit changes. And that’s before any alteration to the 50p tax rate that the Chancellor seems set on scrapping.