There are many reasons for this, commercial confidentiality being the most obvious. But I’m also wary of creating self-fulfilling prophecies. I have, as you have suggested, a certain reputation in my field. I don’t want to sound unduly arrogant, but if my trades became public knowledge, it’s very possible that other traders might wish to copy them, hoping to ride my professional coat-tails, so to speak. This would have two effects. Firstly, it would create exactly the kind of downward pressure on the corporation in question that you, sir, seem so keen to avoid. And second, it would actually destroy the market. After all, someone has to buy my trade. So I can’t go short on a stock unless someone else wants to go long. I depend upon genuine and healthy differences of opinion within the market — a kind of commercial democracy, if you will — to create the margins from which I profit.

‘But I’ll say this about the general subject of the energy industry in all its forms. My personal view is that there are many members of extremist special-interest groups who’ll look at the impact of Islamist terrorism and be tempted to apply it to their own causes. In business terms, terror is a product that works. I therefore anticipate that environmental activists will seek to emulate the activities of groups like al-Qaeda by attacking specific targets related to oil, nuclear generation and power transmission — to take three examples. If by my investments I highlight the current vulnerabilities of a particular sector, I believe I’m not only doing good business, I’m doing my patriotic duty, too.’

More than one reporter present at the hearings picked up on the phrase, ‘Terror is a product that works,’ and contacted their newspaper or TV network, alerting editors to its headline potential. Sadly for them, however, one of Hollywood’s leading action heroes, a tough yet sensitive Australian much loved for his clean-living, family-loving lifestyle, crashed his Ferrari 458 Italia that afternoon in the parking lot of the Hideaway Inn, Malibu while severely intoxicated.