Why the one-eyed Right is wrong to defend the former RBS boss

Once upon a time he was delighted with himself, now Fred Goodwin is deknighted and alone….but says he’s been made a scapegoat. This, says Jeremy Warner at the Telegraph (followed rapidly by dozens of Tory backbench MPs), shows Britain isn’t open for business. He has done nothing wrong, they argue, he has merely been a bit of a tw*t for a long time.

The logic of that argument: there is a direct correlation between knighthood-stripping and Britain’s trade deficit. There’s nothing wrong with treating RBS like your personal fiefdom, and then displaying no remorse whatsoever about leaving hard-pressed taxpayers to pick up the bill. The way to get Britain back on the road to recovery is to leave bankers entirely free from criticism or prosecution, and just let them get on with the job of batting hard for Britain.

The illogic of stripping Fred of his Knighthood: two wrongs don’t make a right. It is wrong to give knighthoods to any pillock that pays money into Party funds, or lobbbies for a K, or shuts up any and all criticism by using his money to fund gagging orders. It is wrong to strip plonkers of knighthoods they should never have had in the first place.

The bottom line: take all control of the Honours System away from politicians. Better still, abolish the whole thing in favour of something completely transparent that is restricted entirely to those who do genuine good, as opposed to being utterly incompetent, celeb obsessed and unable to spot a con like ABNAmro from ten feet away.

Both the political elite and Fred Goodwin are grubby, underperforming and untrustworthy.

Herein ends the resume.

I have yet to see this view expressed in Britain’s mainstream media. Is it just me, then?