Fred "the Shred" Goodwin, an infamous figure in Britain's aristocracy and a symbol of finance industry greed and incompetence, stands to lose his knighthood. Goodwin was knighted for "services to banking," and a few years later presided over the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, which the British public had to bail out. Goodwin walked away with a titanic, multimillion-pound pension. The Prime Minister David Cameron has asked the relevant committees to have a go at taking away Goodwin's knighthood.

  • LordBlagger

    Time to have a go a politicians, MPs and Peers, whose legacy is 7,000 bn of debt, most of which has been Bernie Maddoff’ed off the books.

  • Jamie Mactulloch-Gair

    Still not allowed to refer to him as a ‘banker’ then :(  I suppose ‘bankster’ is a fitting description, although not as strong as the rhyming slang I would indulge in to describe him.

    • http://theladyfingers.blogspot.com/ Ladyfingers

      “Bunt”?

    • anwaya

      I think the real loss from using “bankster” is the collective noun, wunch. Pride of lions, wunch of bankers. As in: I saw a wunch of bankers drinking ‘poo in the pub at lunchtime.

      Which pub, did you say? The Berkeley Hunt, of course.

  • Antinous / Moderator

    He’ll just join the even more exclusive Bob Mugabe Club, for people who have had their honors revoked.

  • rak0ribz

    We’re all in agreement that they should give it to Banksy after they take it away, right?

  • satn

    Now if they would just take away his family jewels, I’d call it even.

  • http://profiles.google.com/rob.hobson Rob Hobson

    Pedant’s corner: I’m gritting my teeth over your use of the word “aristocracy” there. Doesn’t the Greek root refer to “rule of the greatest”?

    • pizzicato

      The greek origin of the word Idiot (Idiotes) meant to refer a socially private individual? Just saying :)

      It is on wikipedia.

    • Wreckrob8

      Aristos is Greek for best cognate with arete (excellence) I believe.

  • blepom

    What we need is to take their money.
    They have a ton of it. Imagine how many schools and hospitals we could keep alive thanks to that dishonest money. If we just raided a few bankers/politicians/1%, there would be a lot of cash reinforcing this dying economy. The governments worldwide have no second thoughts taking the money of the poor, so why not the money of the rich, that is a lot more? It also gives politicians so much more money to steal, everyone wins.

  • allium

    I wonder if they still go through with the ceremony of abatement. He could have his Blackberry broken over his head, and the Ferragamo shoes hacked from his heels by one of the workers at whatever cafe they have at the RBS building.

    Somehow, though, I don’t see him ending up on the gibbet.

  • hungryjoe

    Yeah, take away his knighthood, that’ll show him.  And if he’s got any honorary doctorates, let’s nix those as well.  It’s time to him ‘em where they live, people!

  • Brent Kirkham

    Removing a worthless title is meaningless.  Take all his money, his pension, his shares.  Then break his sword and march him out of the city gates.

    • Guest

      It’s not meaningless to him.

  • TheMudshark

    Millions of pounds chiseled out of the general public´s welfare have an amazing ability to help a fellow over the grief of revoked knighthood.