Mr Kingman was there at the start of the banking crisis, playing an important role in shoring up Northern Rock. He ends the year with the government owning a large part of British banking. He manages this stake, worth up to ￡37bn ($53bn, €38bn) in partly or fully nationalised high street banks.

From his spartan office, inhabited by fewer than a dozen staff, Mr Kingman runs UK Financial Investments, an arm's-length government body charged with managing the taxpayer's banking interests. As the recession gets worse, some analysts believe that public stake will get even bigger. The chief executive's mission is clear, but politically tricky. He has been told to “protect and create value for the taxpayer” in banks with the ultimate aim of extracting the taxpayer from banking at a profit. Yet at the same time Gordon Brown, his political master, wants the banks to support business and homeowners and wants banks to pass on interest rate cuts in full.

To his admirers, Mr Kingman has the right mix of toughness and intellectual rigour to manage these potentially contradictory goals. He is variously described as “spectacularly bright”, direct, drily amusing, aloof and arrogant. “He uses his intellect as a weapon,” says one colleague.