Goodwin's Knighthood

In an attempt to appease us plebs with a scapegoat whilst not actually doing anything about the systemic problems in the financial sector, David Cameron has engineered the removal of Fred Goodwin's knighthood. As pious chancellor George Osborne explained, Goodwin "came to symbolise everything that went wrong in the British economy over the last decade".
Well, duh! That is just about as irrelevant as giving it to him in the first place! Goodwin still keeps his £342.5K per year pension plus all the ill-gotten loot he acquired whilst employed at the Royal Bank of Scotland. And in any case, so what? Goodwin's reputation could hardly sink any lower, so losing his Knighthood is not much of a penalty for costing the UK £45 billion in bailing out RBS. And meanwhile, other miscreants, such as MPs who fiddled their expenses*, keep their 'honours' and the financial sector is free to go on with its credit default swaps, short-selling, collateralised debt obligations, and many more.

It just goes to show how discredited the financial sector, politicians and the honours system are.

* For example:

Sir Stuart Bell claimed £750 a month for food and designated his second home as a flat in London and claimed £1,400 a month rent.
Sir Paul Beresford who, as well as being an MP, worked up to three days a week as a dentist and designated his west London property, which included his surgery, as his second home on his parliamentary expenses.
Sir Michael Lord claimed more than £8000 over five years for his garden.
Sir Peter Tapsell claimed rent for second home in London, which rose from £4,821 a quarter in 2006 to £5,417 a quarter in 2008. Total claims over four years of £87,729.
Sir Peter Viggers included with his expense claims the £1,645 cost of a floating duck house in the garden pond at his Hampshire home.
Sir Nicholas Winterton who, with his wife Ann, claimed more than £80,000 for a London flat owned by a trust controlled by their children.

Not to mention Conrad Black, Jeffrey Archer, Sir Mark Thatcher and his mum the Barmy Baronness! I put it to you M'Lud that these people "have come to symbolise everything that went wrong with" most things in public life.

[above details via The Guardian]