Should Fred Goodwin have lost his knighthood?
Newspapers were recently filled with stories about former Royal Bank of Scotland chief executive being stripped of his knighthood. Goodwin was awarded the knighthood bank in 2004 by the then in power Labour government. The knighthood was awarded to Goodwin for services to banking while at RBS but following the knighthood a lot has gone wrong. There are two reasons why Goodwin might have lost his knighthood but whichever it was, did Goodwin deserve to be stripped of it?
The first contributing factor is that during the time that Fred Goodwin was in control of RBS the bank got into a terrible position which required huge bailouts from the UK government. Overall a staggering 45 billion has been paid to RBS from taxpayer's money to stop the whole banking system from collapsing. There has been much investigation into the situation at RBS and it has been found that Goodwin's actions as chief executive officer are largely the cause of the problems.
The Royal Bank of Scotland was in such a terrible state that its bailouts were largely the cause of the UK's financial crisis which in turn played a major part in the recession which was the worst since the Second World War. The reason many are questioning whether Goodwin deserved to lose his kinghood though is because his actions have been known for a long time but he has only recently lost his knighthood after again being in the media spotlight.
The other possible contributing factor is that while the problems were occurring at RBS Goodwin was having an affair with a senior colleague. Goodwin took out a super injunction to keep the other person's name a secret but for a man who is known as partially causing the UK's recession her name is just a minor detail.
The affair is of course more to do with Goodwin's private life but the chance that it might have contributed to RBS' problems has made it a professional incident. Even without the affair entirely though Goodwin's failings as CEO at RBS should alone have rightly caused him to be stripped of his knighthood.
The first contributing factor is that during the time that Fred Goodwin was in control of RBS the bank got into a terrible position which required huge bailouts from the UK government. Overall a staggering 45 billion has been paid to RBS from taxpayer's money to stop the whole banking system from collapsing. There has been much investigation into the situation at RBS and it has been found that Goodwin's actions as chief executive officer are largely the cause of the problems.
The Royal Bank of Scotland was in such a terrible state that its bailouts were largely the cause of the UK's financial crisis which in turn played a major part in the recession which was the worst since the Second World War. The reason many are questioning whether Goodwin deserved to lose his kinghood though is because his actions have been known for a long time but he has only recently lost his knighthood after again being in the media spotlight.
The other possible contributing factor is that while the problems were occurring at RBS Goodwin was having an affair with a senior colleague. Goodwin took out a super injunction to keep the other person's name a secret but for a man who is known as partially causing the UK's recession her name is just a minor detail.
The affair is of course more to do with Goodwin's private life but the chance that it might have contributed to RBS' problems has made it a professional incident. Even without the affair entirely though Goodwin's failings as CEO at RBS should alone have rightly caused him to be stripped of his knighthood.
