Four decades ago, more than 4mn people applied for shares in British Gas, at the time the world’s largest privatisation. More sell-offs followed, and by the end of the 1980s the number of private shareholders had trebled to 11mn, prompting talk of a US-style equity culture.

Today, new listings have shrivelled up and City grandees fret about an exodus of companies. The pioneering Alternative Investment Market, now simply Aim, is a shadow of its former self. Tens of billions of pounds sit in low-yield savings accounts, while more adventurous types are seduced by leverage and cryptocurrencies.

There is disappointment that the chancellor, Rachel Reeves, did not say much in her Mansion House speech to rekindle interest in equities. But cutting stamp duty, fiddling with Isa limits or rerunning a “Tell Sid” advertising campaign, which encouraged people to buy shares in British Gas, would achieve little anyway.

Privatisations and the demutualisations of building societies that began around the same time, tended to be priced keenly. So the shares went up when trading started and often carried on going up, in what turned out to be a halcyon era for share ownership. Understandably, people liked that.

But then it stopped. The dotcom bust was followed by the financial crisis. Shareholders in privatised Railtrack were wiped out in 2001, those in demutualised Northern Rock and Bradford & Bingley in 2008. Stock markets came to be viewed as little more than casinos. The FTSE 100 took more than 15 years to retake its 1999 high.

Meanwhile, those with spare money to invest had discovered another asset class with a pleasing habit of rising each year: property.

Real estate is comfortingly tangible and easy to understand. You can use borrowed money to buy it, boosting your capital gains. Successive governments — and Bank of England governors — seemed very keen that house prices shouldn’t fall too much, limiting losses.

Small wonder that, in one BBC poll after the nationalisation of Northern Rock, 53 per cent of respondents said property was “safer than cash”.

But bumper returns from real estate are harder to come by these days. The bizarre era of ultra-low interest rates is over. Regulation and taxation of letting has become significantly more burdensome. House prices are barely outpacing inflation.

Owning equities, directly or indirectly, has never been easier or cheaper. Upfront charges of 5 per cent on poorly performing funds have given way to trackers whose running costs are fractions of a percentage point. Trading shares directly is quick and secure. The Isa allowance is generous enough for most people’s needs, while auto enrolment has brought millions into pension saving.

If government and industry want to turn this promising backdrop into a new retail equity boom, they need to follow the advice of Peter Hargreaves, the co-founder of investment platform Hargreaves Lansdown, who once opined that every extra box on a form prompted 10 per cent of applicants to abandon filling it in — and keep everything as simple, consistent and clear as possible.

Roll back the proliferation of Isa sub-brands. Apply one set of income, capital gains and inheritance tax rules to all asset classes. Reduce the utterly bewildering choice of investment funds by at least half (believe me, most of them won’t be missed).

That would still leave the issue of the FTSE 100, which set new highs this week, but is hardly a collection of companies that fires the imagination, being largely dominated by the same plodding old banks, insurers, oils and miners as it was two decades ago. But it would at least be a start.