London | Lex Greensill had been summoned before a committee of MPs to account for his company’s failure, but paradoxically there were just as many reminders of why most of his past decade has been a story of success.

For three hours, he was by turns harangued, soft-soaped, cross-examined and dissected, as members of the British Parliament’s Treasury Select Committee took their turn in the inquisitor’s chair, or sometimes on the soapbox.