Is this a showdown or a meeting of Weight Watchers?

A little too cosy, isn't it? John McFall, the Labour chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, is leading the interrogation of the bosses of the big banks – and he is addressing them all by their first names.

So it's Eric, John, Stephen, Antonio and Paul, rather than Mr Daniels (Lloyds), Mr Varley (Barclays), Mr Hester (RBS), Mr Horta-Osorio (Abbery) or Mr Thurston (HSBC).

 Is such a chummy approach wise?  The TSC is surely there to give the bankers a hard time. This sort of informality makes it sound like a meeting of Weight Watchers, not a hard-hitting inquiry into how the banks can get us out of the pit they've dropped us into.