Back to Fred

Given that Fred Goodwin received his knighthood in 2004 for 'services to banking', it was entirely appropriate that he was stripped of it today, since he was responsible for bringing the Royal Bank of Scotland to its knees. He still walked away with a huge pension pot, only agreeing to refund some of it under the threat of legal action by RBS. Calton agrees with Vince Cable, who said at the time that Goodwin "obviously has got no sense of shame", unlike his replacement Stephen Hester, who has just turned down his annual bonus. The fact remains that there is something rotten in the heart of our banking system which needs to be addressed rather than relying on bank bosses to 'do the decent thing'. The unbridled capitalism of the Blair-Brown years has to be reined in and the enormous gulf between rich and poor must be narrowed if we want our society to be fair and prosperous. The alternative is increasing social unrest.