"Due to planned engineering works, the financial markets are closed today"

Although the I don’t quite follow in Paul Waugh’s footsteps in regularly cursing Shriti Vadera whilst trying to navigate the London Underground system, he’s quite right to highlight in the Evening Standard that the botched part-privatisation of London Underground is very much her personal legacy.

No matter how rigorous the objections from no matter how authoritative and experienced the sources, she ignored them and insisted on a scheme that, in the end, only she and Gordon Brown seemed to fully believe in – and which neither were willing to defend in public. It was pretty much all behind-the-scenes arm twisting, running bills running into hundreds of millions for introducing the scheme, with the classic Gordon Brown touch of him being unwilling to defend in public what he was insisting on in private.

And the result? Take a look at one of the Tube stations that’s been left with half-abandoned repair works for months at a time, or the sharp increase in fares, or what passes for weekend service on the Tube.

Let’s hope she doesn’t do the same for the G20, else, “Due to planned engineering works, the European, Asian and South American financial markets are closed today. Please use an alternative form of finance.”