Any Old Bandwagon

As regular readers know - I wouldn't cross the road for the so-called privilege of being awarded an honour by Her Madge the Queen.

To my mind the honours system is both outdated and ridiculous - it should be swept away and replaced with something that is about people doing voluntary work - or essential jobs that might even be paid but not rewarded with film star salaries.

What makes me laugh - and sometimes sick to my stomach if I'm honest - is the sight of the great and the good - almost peeing their pants over whether they'll get an MBE, OBE, become a shining knight of the realm.

Or maybe even be sent to the House of Lords - with its £300 per day in tax free allowances.

But recent events have achieved the impossible - by making me feel a teeny bit sorry for Sir Fred 'The Shred' Goodwin - and the campaign to strip the former Royal Bank of Scotland chief of his knighthood.

Don't get me wrong - I'm all in favour of taking back something that looks really bad and undeserved - even with the benefit of hindsight.

But what makes me a little bit queasy is the number and motives of people - who are effectively queueing up to 'whip a whipped dog'.

The Prime Minister said last week that Sir Fred should be stripped of his knighthood - only for Ed Miliband this week to jump on the passing bandwagon.

Ed put the boot in too and gave an exclusive interview to the Daily Mail - calling for Goodwin to be put into the modern day equivalent of the public stocks - distancing himself from Labour's decision to award the honour in the first place.

But all of this leaves a nasty taste in my mouth - not out of any real sympathy for Sir Fred - but because there were plenty of others involved in the debacle surrounding RBS as well - politicians as well as bankers.

To my mind it's a great diversionary tactic to try and pin the blame on just one 'fall guy' - when there are so many other culprits and wrongdoers hiding in the background.

So I found myself agreeing with the words of Jack McConnell - now the noble Lord McConnell having been finally made a Labour life peer by Gordon Brown.

Lord Jack said recently:

"Fred Goodwin made mistakes, but so did a lot of other people at RBS, including people on the board who also have honours. They appointed him and agreed the strategy and have never been held to account."

I think the government, both the Labour and Tory government before it, were making mistakes about regulation.

I sympathise with the public concern on this issue, but I think if you are going to have a system that is relatively independent and fair in allocating these awards then you need to have system that is independent and fair in looking at removing them."

Now what this proves to me is that even noble lords can speak common sense - at times anyway.

I liked Jack's implicit advice and rebuke to Ed Miliband - to stop cosying up to the Daily Mail and resist the temptation to jump on just any old passing bandwagon.

Now I wouldn't hand out any of these baubles in the first place - and shame on those who covet them - for many are sycophants and hypocrites.

But if they are going to be taken away at the discretion of Her Madge - then we should at least be consistent and include the others - who deserve to be in the frame as well.