Twelve months on from the UK Government’s £37bn (€40bn) bailout of the banking sector it is sometimes easy to forget how close the British financial system, and possibly Europe’s and America’s, came to the point of collapse.

On October 8, the Government announced it intended to pump tens of billions of pounds into the UK's major banks, amid growing panic in the markets, which saw the national authorities flailing and failing to get a handle on the situation.