He said, pointedly, that he didn't fall into "the category of people who had no recollection of" - a clear reference to Gordon Brown's City fixit woman ShritiVadera who was resented at the Treasury.
Although Stephen Byers, the former transport minister, is more obviously in the shareholders' sights, e-mail exchanges within government show that the Treasury, represented by one of Mr Brown's closest advisers, ShritiVadera, was in the driving seat.
Yet it was a Treasury mandarin, Sir Steve Robson, who dreamt the whole thing up in the first place, and two secondees working for the Treasury, Adrian Montague and ShritiVadera, who led last year's protracted negotiations with Mr Kiley.