When Royal Bank of Scotland was taken into majority state ownership in October 2008, it was fashionable at Westminster to talk about taxpayers getting their money back or ending up making a profit on reprivatisation.

Although the government rescue was enormous - amounting in the end to £45.2 billion for 82% of RBS and hundreds of billions more in emergency liquidity to keep the financial system alive - it was hoped that economic recovery would leave the bank in such a good position that the UK taxpayer might emerge up on the deal.