Or to put it another way, telling banks they have to raise material amounts of capital - without telling them how much capital and setting a deadline from them to find it - may have the perverse and damaging consequence of contracting the amount of credit supplied to the economy, and knocking economic recovery yet again.

BBC: How big is the 'material' hole in banks?

And Chancellor George Osborne also ruled out an annual levy on wealth, another idea floated by the Lib Dems, telling Sky News it was not a "sensible" way of getting the better-off to contribute more.

BBC: Conservative conference: Cameron in benefit cuts warning