To be fair to activist investor Edward Bramson, he has been unlucky with his timing. He made his investment in Barclays in 2018, just as trading conditions for big investment banks were improving and two years ahead of their biggest bonanza in more than a decade.

That hardly helped his argument that Barclays should scale back its markets business and concentrate on its retail and cards operations. To make matters worse, while the pandemic boosted capital markets and deal-making activity the retail bank has been hit by high loan provisions and rock-bottom interest rates.