Yet, as the lights came down on the final day of the 'greatest show on earth', I was left asking the uncomfortable question - what next for this great nation?

The Bank of England revised down its growth forecast for 2012 to virtually zero last week, reinforcing the raft of weak economic data released recently. The UK economy has now contracted in 5 out of the last 7 quarters and net growth since the end of the recession in 2009 has been negligible.

If you ask any small business to list the issues that most affect its daily activity, you would get very short odds on at least part of the answer being access to finance. Over the last five years, banks have been vilified both for lending too frivolously and too modestly - quite an achievement, even for a banker.