The punishment for credit crunch failings is creeping up the Barclays Capital hierarchy. First to go was Edward Cahill, the man responsible for creating SIV-lites, those whizzy, off-balance-sheet vehicles that seemed to generate such melodic returns - until the music stopped.

Then in November, as the full impact of sub-prime credit downgrades became apparent, John Kreitler, US head of credit trading, and Vince Balducci, US head of credit derivatives, were stripped of their formal responsibilities. Now we learn that their boss, Grant Kvalheim, is to leave. In the highest echelons of BarCap, however, a different story is unfolding. Bob Diamond, the chief executive, is on course to receive a £14.8 million bonus this year. Many shareholders would argue that this is thoroughly deserved. So far Mr Diamond has steered BarCap through the worst of the credit crunch: on both sub-prime CDOs and leveraged buyout loans, it suffered less than most of its Wall Street rivals.

Even so, BarCap did flush away £1.7 billion in dud loans and investments last year. One wonders how many billions it would have had to mislay for Mr Diamond to be paid no bonus at all.

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