Simon English: If only Plum had never gone into banking...

Outlook: Goodwin can at least be pleased that he was a Sir for longer than some bankers, including PG Wodehouse. That former HSBC employee was 93 before finally getting his knighthood in 1975. He died the same year.

Some people think Plum had to wait so long because of his broadcasts from Germany while a prisoner of war, but I suspect it was down to the grubby nature of his former career. Wodehouse freely admitted that "he never learned a thing about banking". Goodwin knows the feeling.