It seems the banks really can do no good. The unveiling of a £1.5bn fund to boost lending to small and medium-sized enterprises by the UK’s six major banks – Barclays, HSBC, Lloyds, Royal Bank of Scotland, Santander and Standard Chartered – has been met with scepticism from all quarters. One of the criticisms levelled at the banks is that the fund will lend to companies with a turnover of between £10m and £100m rather than provide loans to the smallest companies.

On the BBC's Today programme this morning, journalist John Humphrys gave Barclays chief executive John Varley a grilling over pay. An excerpt from the interview appears below: