Mark Leftly: How George Osborne must long to ease out Sir Mervyn King

Outlook Wow, if ever there was a case of someone being demob happy it's Sir Mervyn King. Not content with destabilising the markets when it emerged that he had voted for boosting the economy through another round of quantitative easing from its current £375bn, the Bank of England's Governor told the Banking Standards Commission to break up Royal Bank of Scotland.

He said a situation that sees the Government own 82 per cent of the bailed-out bank, yet it is allowed to be run at arm's-length, was "nonsense" and RBS should be split into a "good" and a "bad" bank.

The Chancellor, George Osborne,must be wondering if he can hasten Sir Mervyn's June departure date.