So our old friend the RBS is back in the news for the wrong reasons . Everybody is working up a lather over the circumstances over Mr Hester’s departure and that has triggered a debate as to whether it signals that privatisation is firmly on the radar.

The elephant in the room remains the level of rotten property debt on its books but we don’t seem to hear much about it these days. I know several people who have massive defaults on RBS loans but their companies trundle along as zombies with the bank paying them management fees to manage the portfolios. It feels that they are taking far too long to get their balance sheet tidied up . If they were my client I would tell them toget a move on and bite the bullet, American style.

The question is how these are being valued for the purpose of privatisation both by the government and by prospective investors.

Given the gulf between what you and I paid to rescue the bank and it’s current share price I am scratching my head over why the “P” word is even on the radar.