A knight to forget

Wise Words: knight, Sir, sir

Fred Goodwin, former CEO of the Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS) and persona non grata in the UK, is no longer a knight. He was unceremoniously stripped of his title during a late-night phone call. Although it was Queen Elizabeth II who ultimately revoked his knighthood, it wasn’t she who called him. How disappointed he must have been.

She should have stripped him of his knighthood years ago. Since the queen forced him to his knees and swiped a sword dangerously close to his ears, he has never once put on any shining armour or rescued any damsel in distress. All he managed to do was pocket a gold-plated pension as he fled the office, and he didn’t even ride a horse out of there.

Goodwin, as we’re now permitted to call him, had been given the knighthood for services to banking in 2004. Barely four years later, the bank he was running had to be rescued by the taxpayers with a £45 million bailout. Although he wasn’t solely responsible for destroying the bank, he was the chief decision-maker. It was therefore ridiculous to force people to continue calling him “Sir”, or even “sir”, for his services to banking.

Normally, knights lose their titles if they have been convicted of a crime (Goodwin hasn’t) or have been stripped of their professional status (Goodwin hasn’t either). And Goodwin is not on a par with others who have lost their knighthoods (such as the dictators Robert Mugabe and Nicolae Ceauscescu, or even the spy Anthony Blunt). The move was admittedly a populist one by British Prime Minister David Cameron; however, it was still right to strip Goodwin of this anachronistic honour.

The British are fed up with arrogant bankers who take more than they are morally or ethically entitled to. As David Fleming, trade union Unite’s national officer, commented: "It is a token gesture to strip Fred Goodwin of his knighthood, but one which will be well received by the thousands of workers who lost their jobs during his rule.”

Goodwin is not the first person to, as the Cabinet Office put it, “bring the honours system into disrepute”. I'm sure he won’t be the last, either.