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Tuesday 22 May 2012

Sir Fred Should Have Kept His Knighthood

Tuesday, 31st January 2012

So poor old Fred Goodwin has been stripped of his knighthood. Apparently, betting big on a Dutch bank and getting it catastrophically wrong means you end up bringing the honours system into some kind of disrepute. At this point let me remind you that Alan Sugar has a peerage.

As with the question of bonuses at RBS (which, if memory serves turned a £2bn profit last year), so the outrage and ordure chucked at Sir Fred was enough to make one feel slightly sorry for him. Not, of course, that he needs much sympathy but there's something unedifying about seeing even rich men and bankers throw to the Daily Mail and other members of the wolf pack in quite this fashion.

Mob "justice" is mob "justice" even when it is notionally in a good cause. That's something you'd like to think a Tory Prime Minister would remember. There is a mean-spiritedness abroad that refuses to let bygones be bygones. On the contrary, humiliation and pounds of flesh are the order of the day.

Bankers are not an especially sympathetic group and Sir Fred's hubris* at RBS cost him his reputation and the country a largish sum of money. But that's an argument for not awarding bankers honours (a strange practice anyway) until after their retirement, not one for endorsing this kind of petty revenge. Reversing a previous ministry's decision simply because not doing so proves awkward or even embarrassing is a pretty poor precendent.

Indeed, this knighthood-stripping business is unusual. It does not happen often. Robert Mugabe lost his but, as a foreigner, it wasn;t a real honour anyway. The only British subject I can think of who has been subject to this kind of refashioned act of attainder is Anthony Blunt. Whatever else Sir Fred is or was he ain't a sodding traitor, is he? (UPDATE: Andrew McKie reminds me that Jack Lyons and Joe Kagan each lost their Ks too, though again each had committed a criminal offence.)

Not for the first time one thinks of Macaulay's quip: We know no spectacle so ridiculous as the British public in one of its periodical fits of morality. As then so now. Goodwin is a useful sacrifice to toss to the mob and few people are likely to shed too many tears over his final demise. Nevertheless, kicking a man again when he is already down (in terms of reputation though not, I concede, financially) is the sort of thing that, once upon a time, the British thought was not terribly British. That was always a slightly sentimental view but it's certainly preferable to pandering to the mob time and time again.

*The problem was less buying ABNAmro rather losing the part he wanted to Barclays and deciding, for the hell of it and more or less on an ego-fuelled whim, to buy the parts of this Dutch bank RBS had previously shown no interest in acquiring. Bravado and the love of the deal were Goodwin's downfall, laced with a fine measure of arrogance that assumed that since RBS had made it happen before it could and would do so again. Not so.

UPDATE: Being a sound fellow of sound mind, Hamish Macdonnell is on this page too. See James Mackintosh as well.

Filed under: Banks (134 more articles) , Britain (738 more articles) , O Tempora, O Mores (186 more articles) , RBS (19 more articles)

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ThigArLatha

January 31st, 2012 7:53pm Report this comment

Once again I agree. Mob rule.
Basically this Government has no spine.

daniel maris

January 31st, 2012 8:02pm Report this comment

Why are you so worried about the fate of one (still) very, very rich man? But you don't post about the 21,000 people who have lost their jobs with RBS. What about the unjustice of their fate?

Of course, they're not rich or influential.

It's time the porkers were put on a diet.

Matthew

January 31st, 2012 8:16pm Report this comment

The whole thing is silly, but if you believe the Queen should be able to raise certain citizens above others, it's hard not to think she should have the right to lower them back again.

The Oncoming Storm

January 31st, 2012 8:24pm Report this comment

This won't sound popular but I agree, Goodwin committed no criminal act, he was irresponsible and reckless but that is not an offence. This is just a cheap populist act, just like throwing a Christian to the lions to earn Nero some credit.

James

January 31st, 2012 9:03pm Report this comment

I don't see what good is achieved. Cheap, petty gesture politics by all concerned. It also ignores the good that Goodwin did for the country before the wider economy went arse over elbow. Is anyone seriously suggesting Goodwin is to blame for that???

Andy

January 31st, 2012 9:10pm Report this comment

Instead of stripping his knighthood, they should erect a 10ft statue of fred outside the commons, and all mps should pass between his legs, stooping low, as they enter parliament, reminding them each time of the follys of stoking a credit bubble or attempting to rewrite basic economic law

Pot Head

January 31st, 2012 9:35pm Report this comment

Who's next ?

When is Cameron going to strip the convicted VAT fraudster SIR Richard Branson of his Knighthood, who when he wasn't colluding with British Airways to rip off passengers was mis-selling electricity to pensioners.

And whose tax arrangements are so opaque and off- shore that they probably end up on Moon Base Newt

Simon Stephenson.

January 31st, 2012 9:50pm Report this comment

"There is a mean-spiritedness abroad that refuses to let bygones be bygones. On the contrary, humiliation and pounds of flesh are the order of the day."

I think you misjudge this one, Alex. This isn't vindictiveness, it's denial and blame-shifting. The more ordure that can be heaped on someone else, the less there is that might be applied to oneself. This is the psychology of it, and, to me, this is why it is so nauseating.

Simon Stephenson.

January 31st, 2012 9:51pm Report this comment

(Continued)

Most of those who have called so vehemently for the removal of Goodwin's gong will have voted for the Party which gave it to him, and which so championed the business philosophy and methods of all those who took our country to the brink of disaster. The blame for RBS going bust isn't with Goodwin, it's with the people who elected Labour in 1997, 2001 and 2005. May you all be forever ashamed.

The Oncoming Storm

January 31st, 2012 10:09pm Report this comment

And if we're going to take honours away from businessmen because they screwed up then surely something should be done about Lord Simpson, the man who turned solid, cash rich GEC into bankrupt dot com failure Marconi?

Stephen

January 31st, 2012 10:57pm Report this comment

Nevertheless, kicking a man again when he is already down (in terms of reputation though not, I concede, financially) is the sort of thing that, once upon a time, the British thought was not terribly British.

But of course, sacking your workers and paying yourself large bonuses is British!

Who would want to be British, eh?

Radford NG

January 31st, 2012 11:02pm Report this comment

What I've seen on TV is the police out in force in Morningside when this bloke Fred gets a window broken & his car 'keyed'.Police,police cars,police tape all-over the place.Is this the kind of Service you get in Govan?...I ask as a jibe against the Government of Scotland.This difference in support can not be blamed on the English.

Rootar

February 1st, 2012 8:22am Report this comment

I thought you got an award e.g a knighthood for what you had done, not for what you subsequently did or did not do.

Ian Walker

February 1st, 2012 8:36am Report this comment

I didn't realise Alex still considered himself British, since he's been a fully paid up member of Salmond's cheerleading squad for a fortnight.

Or is it only a British problem when it's gone wrong?

Fergus Pickering

February 1st, 2012 9:36am Report this comment

Rootar, I expect Robert Mugabe was a good egg when he got his knighthood. His subsequent career of torture and murder is quite irrelevant. Incidentally, why don't we knight MR Salmon - a Knight of the Thistle of course, like Sir Alec Douglas-Home.

HCollins

February 1st, 2012 10:11am Report this comment

I find some of these comments amazing. Surely if you believe in capitalism, then you must believe not only that success should carry rewards, but also that failure should have a price. Goodwin didn't get his knighthood for being an unsuccessful businessman, after all. Screw up and things get taken away. Isn't that the justification for the massive rewards?

Unless what you really believe in is not entrepreneurship at all, but a protected class of corporate bureaucrats for whom failure has no consequences.

Simon Stephenson.

February 1st, 2012 11:30am Report this comment

HCollins : 10.11am

But the point is that this isn't the established process by which these things are done. Maybe it should be, but the fact remains that at the moment it isn't. The only way you can run a society of 60 million people is to have rules which apply equally to everyone. This is why lawmaking is so difficult, because there are so many intuitively "good" procedures that just don't work within the framework of universal application.

Mark H Wilkinson

February 1st, 2012 1:59pm Report this comment

Humiliation? Let's see: he doesn't get to be called "Sir" in some circumstances in which the rest of us wouldn't be thus addressed. But as one of the non-poor, he'll still have some fairly exclusive sir-age from a fairly exclusive service industry.

No, sorry, not feeling it on this occasion, Massie.

In2minds

February 1st, 2012 3:28pm Report this comment

Goodwin and the gong. So why did Cameron do this? Well our David likes to see himself as H2B. So it must be 'tough on banking and tough on the causes of banking'. Gesture politics at its best.

Patricia Shaw

February 1st, 2012 3:31pm Report this comment

Suggest you all read the splendid City Am editor and JC contributor Allister Heath on the subject.

Frank Furter

February 1st, 2012 5:27pm Report this comment

I cannot get very exercised about this except to say that when Jean Else was stripped of her DBE a couple of years ago there was no fuss made in the media. She was convicted of no crime (mismanagement of a school and nepotism), censured by the GTC and, consequently debased. Goodwin did far worse though no crime was committed, was criticised by the FSA, and was similarly debased. There was a proper procedure followed in these two cases, following long established guidelines, and in the other cases that happen each year of people losing their CBEs etc. Lets not make Goodwin a martyr.