I was supposed to spend last Friday afternoon attacking bankers' pay – but my invitation to do so was withdrawn because I was deemed too wishy-washy.

The event was to launch a schools' debating competition. The organisers wanted some grown-up debaters to give the students an idea of how it should be done. They asked me to speak in favour of the motion that “the government should impose limits on bankers' pay”.

The idea of debating is that you should be able to speak for or against any proposition, but the organisers asked us to say what we truly believed. I told them that while there was a case for changes to the taxation of remuneration, I did not think imposing limits was feasible or desirable. The organisers said that these debates worked best as “real clear-cut head-to-heads”, which I am sure is true, and we agreed they should opt for someone who felt able to give a simple answer to the question under discussion.