In my opinion, there was one clear loser from the recent UK sovereign debt downgrade.

I’m not talking about savers or investors or taxpayers or homeowners. I’m not even talking about George Osborne, although it hasn’t exactly done much to improve his dwindling credibility.

No, I’m referring to Moody’s and the other global ratings agencies.

These companies exist to assess the credit worthiness of large-scale borrowers, whether governments or companies. By their very nature, they should be ahead of the game, leading the markets, acting as a sign post for investors.

According to the comments that have flooded my inbox over the past few days, however, this was a “likely downgrade”, “had been discussed for months” and “was largely priced into markets”.

In other words, the fact that the UK had lost its prized AAA rating came as a surprise to precisely no one. This was confirmed by the fact markets shrugged the news off this morning, with the FTSE 100 actually rising in early trading.

The money markets had already priced it into exchange rates and the pound had already been losing value ahead of the downgrade.

So, all this weekend’s news did was confirm what we all knew already…that the ratings agencies are now the followers not the leaders.

Of course this ratings agencies bashing is nothing new. It began after their disastrous contribution to the global economic meltdown when they were criticised for assigning high ratings to toxic financial products amid claims of corruption.

However, with so much mistrust surrounding financial services, now is precisely the time the ratings agencies should step up and prove their value and worth.

In a world where consumers are desperate for independent and trustworthy analysis of investment products, the three big ratings agencies, Moody’s, Standard and Poor’s and Fitch should be the answer.

Yet, this weekend’s downgrade was just further proof of their lack of ability to affect markets.

And if markets are taking their analysis with a pinch of salt, why shouldn’t everyone else?