Wanted - politicians of integrity

Given that Fred Goodwin's knighthood was for services to banking, Calton thinks it entirely appropriate that he was stripped of it in the wake of the RBS debacle. Many shareholders, small and large, were persuaded to part with £2 a share in a rights issue just months before the crash and lost a lot of money as a result, while Fred walked away with a golden pension pot. Calton does not, therefore, agree with Alastair Darling that stripping Goodwin of his knighthood was a 'terrible mistake'. He does, however, think that the former Chancellor has a valid point in that others who were culpable in the banking crisis got to keep the 'Sir' in front of their name, leaving Goodwin to be the scapegoat to appease public anger. It seems that politicians these days are very quick to find a sacrificial lamb when things go wrong and the press starts howling - the sacking of Sharon Shoesmith after the Baby P affair being another example that springs to mind. Do we want our politicians to be be men and women of integrity, who do things by the rules, or people-pleasers who bow to the baying mob? Sadly, it seems that all too often we get the latter.