Sir Fred Goodwin, the former boss of Royal Bank of Scotland, is to be stripped of his knighthood in the latest political concession to public anger in Britain over the perceived arrogance of some senior bankers.
Sir Frederick Anderson Goodwin – or plain Mr Goodwin from next week – joins Cambridge spy Anthony Blunt and Romania’s former dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in losing his title, after it was decided that he had “brought the honours system into disrepute”.
Normally honours are only removed in the event of serious criminal activity or if the holder is struck off by the relevant regulatory authority. Neither of these applied to Sir Fred but the committee said “the scale and severity of the impact of his actions as CEO of RBS made this an exceptional case”.