Personally I don’t care if he is called His Holy Magnificence Viceroy Goodwin of the Water of Leith. The Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Battenberg familiy three times offered to honour me (LVO, OBE and CVO) and three times I politely refused. I did not think my worth as an individual would be enhanced by being covered in bling by Greco-German midgets.
Come to think of it, German Liz has been subsidising Greek Phil for sixty years. See how modern the Royal Family is – they even provided the model for the Euro.
Goodwin is a distraction from the fact that the resources of socirty are being channelled to the super-rich and unproductive as never before. Thousands of “bankers” in London are getting millions each in bonuses. These people are so regardless of the views of society and of the plight of others as to be truly sociopathic.
Let them keep their baubles, and wear them on their prison uniforms.
” … covered in bling by Greco-German midgets.”
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Agreed, Craig, but you’re making me laugh.
It doesn’t sound like you’re over your food poisoning yet. (I hope I’m wrong. My recent bout lasted two whole weeks.)
“nemo repente fuit turpissimus”
Craig
To have Sir Fred Goodwin as part of the Honours System was a useful reminder of the ways the system is open to corruption. As long as we have the system, better not to tamper with the historical record like Stalinist and Maoist photo editors.
But the intriguing part of your post is this: what was the reason for putting you forward for an OBE? As compared with the semi-automatic CMGs and knighthoods that used to go with some senior FCO positions, OBEs have usually been because of a job notably well done. I can’t believe it was offered once you were settled into Tashkent. So was it for work in Ghana; or, earlier than that, as Deputy Head of West Africa Department?
Iain,
Earlier than that in fact, for intelligence analysis in the first Gulf War
‘Let them keep their baubles, and wear them on their prison uniforms.’
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The point has just been made by a Peter de Wink, an erstwhile friend of Goodwin’s, that here, unlike in the US, nobody has been prosecuted. He added the words .. so far.
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PS Archer one time resident in HMPs Belmarsh, Lincoln and Hollesley Bay still has his peerage.
‘Greco-German midgets.’ Sitting on the fence again, Craig.
Splendidly splenetic, Craig.
RBS went from net assets of £80 bill to liabilities of £1.3 trillion in 10 years. those liabilities belong to the UK taxpayer who now owns 83%. The Knighted deal is to distract from the real crime of RBS
“I did not think my worth as an individual would be enhanced by being covered in bling by Greco-German midgets”.
Funny, perhaps, but I wouldn’t normally expect Craig to indulge in racist humour – even to amuse a sympathetic audience.
If you are violently opposed to the institution of monarchy, Craig, come out and say so. But you wouldn’t usually mock and insult British people whose ancestors came from other countries, so why make an exception for the royal family?
The Queen is descended from Germans, yes, but also from the Anglo-Saxon kings, and the Norman kings, and Holy Roman Emperors and pretty much all the rest. In the US, the head of state has to be born a citizen, but to require his ancestors back fifty generations to share the same citizenship would make it rather difficult.
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Come to think of it, if you want to make an issue of our head of state’s ancestry, does that put you in the same camp as the Americans who don’t like having a half-Kenyan president?
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Honours are crap, but if the system is to survive they shouldn’t take them off people just because the press decide to have a campaign about it. I thought, after phone hacking, our pols were supposed to stand up to media pressure. So nothing changed after all.
Craig, although I am the worst for checking my typo’s, I know you don’t like to make them…:). ehem thirdparagraph’socirty’ehem.
This farce and personalisation, making stooges out of sad people like Godwin and hester, when there are many, who, with almost psychopathic zeal, are carrying on as usual, speculating, gambling and in receipt of massive bonuses, for creating nothing.
It is peculiar how money manages to make the world go round when it in itself has no value, is a mere concept between exchanged services or goods it has been elevated to mean so much to many, dare I say us all, like subserviants we are smitten by its ability to cut through almost every issue.
For example, Pylons, needed to shift vast windenergies from our North sea arrays into the country, via North Norfolk and the beautifull Waveney valley, are five times cheaper than burying the cable.
A massive swedish study, during the seventies I believe, shows clear links between childhood leukemia and other cancers from electromagnetical radiation, near or under power lines, so it is now mandatory for HV power lines to be buried there. There is not even a need to duplicate such a large official study, one could acknowledge its scientific values and adopt it straight away, if our life’s would be as important as the profits of operators.
I have not even talked about the visual impact these ugly monstrosities would cause. An unsustainable activity, i.e. making money from people’s lifes and ruining a beautifull eastern river valley, will be sacrificed in the name of green power and rich pickings and as the icing on the cake, this will diminish the topurismn that has already been established in that part on the Norfolk Suffolk border.
At every level of our life’s money is the arbiter and value to compare against, we have created systems of dependency and multiple unsustainable sytems which will have to fail until there is a different new recognition of reality, of sustainable values, where value increases with better health, more ecological diversity, moving towards selfreliance on food, better soil quality, less CO2 emissions from all our activities, all these attract an increase in value, whilst digging up the ground for oil and ores will be more expensive, all virgin raw materials are more expensive, whilst those mined from old refuse dumps are tarded at a different premium, put a value on recycling and reuse, second and third use designs on just about every product, longivity of products and the ability to repair them, all these would be desirable in a sustainable system. Financial services would be more creative by stewarding sustainable businesse over the long term, short term profits would be undesirable, as they would create instability amongst the other more desirable and supported values. Banks would be champions in local support, their social responsibility would be wedded to their respective client, as much as to their own, as success comes from the establishment and support over the long term.
phew need a cuppa….
Unsustainable species will die out. If we look at frogs, a terrifically successfull specie that has not changed much, which has developed many sub species with exactly the same ecological skeleton, since they last changed some 250 million years back. they have been perfect for a long time and have adapted to both dry and wet environs, they are sustainable, we are not. I’m sure that frogs will outlive us, despite the attack of a funghi that has caused havoc, they are cool, real survivors.
Tom Welsh, why? if there is profanity it is surely that Craig had the audacity to associate the honourable word midget with that of the royal family? midgets all over the world must be outraged don’t you think? 😉
@desperate Des….In the US, the head of state has to be born a citizen….. a very rich citizen to boot.
“Thousands of “bankers” in London are getting millions each in bonuses. These people are so regardless of the views of society and of the plight of others as to be truly sociopathic.”
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http://forum.carersuk.org/viewtopic.php?f=2&t=16451
Diversion tactics as usual, take back the title which is worth nothing, and let them keep their millions and their fat pensions.
We, the ‘British people whose ancestors came from other countries’, are not placed at the top of a power structure linked to the UK military industrial complex like the royals, their hangers on and stooges.
Yeah, this whole charade about honours and bonuses plays well to the gallery and gives the impression that Cameron is being hard on the bankers. The opposite is of course the case, as his efforts (under the cover of standing up for Britain)to scupper the EU initiative on banking regulation demonstrates.
“Archer one time resident in HMPs Belmarsh, Lincoln and Hollesley Bay still has his peerage.”
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Yes, but he’s a Tory.
Yes, Philip (Mountbatten) is Greek of German extraction (and a asylum seeker), but what makes you so sure that the Queen is German? Her mother is Scots / English aristocracy
Kitty Kelley, in her book the Royals, tells us that the King’s Speech was not the only limp and unconvincing item of George VIth anatomy. She suggests that Elizabeth Bowes-Lyon was impregnated (artificially and anonymously if I remember correctly) twice to produce the children. I should look at the Aides-de-Camp of her husband at the relevant time.
“Yes, but he’s a Tory”
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Trish, that statement covers all the three main parties.
His Holy Magnificence Viceroy Goodwin of the Water of Leith, shafted the lot of us, and got away with; his bling to be called back, at the total cost of changing his business cards; former CEO RBS, and Sir. However, this is really theatre for the plebs, in the absence of bread the plots need to be somewhat more tactile/closer home/more in your face, stories of fall from grace etc.
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All the while the daily snort of “bonuses to fat cats” and there should be law against that, there should! Conveniently masking the elephant in the room; deregulated banking laws and feral banksters wreaking havoc on the planet.
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However as the title says; honour among thieves. Hence no nonsense about forfeiture of ill gotten gains and punitive punishment. Alas the midgets having taken over the world, and due to their low lying horizons, are filled with visions of bollocks, hence their wisdom of bollocks, that makes no sense to anyone other than the next midget along.
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Craig good on you, for your refusal, I would like to know how many would have refused the bling, given a half a chance to be named for one?
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Finally, if it is not prying, can you elaborate on your aforementioned “analysis”, if it will not get you into hot water? We need to have records that will eventually stand as witness to the extent of lies and corruption of recantation of events, that will pass as history in the years to come.
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PS Those indignant of the treatment of the Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Battenberg, have these replaced the royal corgis, or are they snapping at the ankles free gratis?
Pierre De France
You missed out on George I and the Hanoverian succession then?
“Greco-German midgets”? Actually I thought the Greek Royay Family was actually Danish. This would explain why Prince Philip was blond and blue eyed when younger. I think also that Edward VII married a Danish Princess which would mean that the British Royal Family is more Danish than anything else.
I note that the SNP were recently wittering on about Scotland becoming more Scandinavian so its perhaps an argument for a separate Scotland to keep the monarchy after all.
John,
Trying to save their bacon? (Don’t know any other Danish jokes)
Well, I suppose I must abandon the floor to you radical republicans. The British constitution is sometimes said to be the best in the world, and it is built around constitutional monarchy. But if you think you can do better – draw up a far superior constitution, like those of (e.g.) the USA, France, or maybe Iraq – have at it.
Thank God I’ll probably be dead before you succeed.
““Yes, but he’s a Tory”
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Trish, that statement covers all the three main parties
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Obligatory Thatcher quote “There is no alternative”. A very prescient person indeed.
I have no firm feelings either way about Royals – they’re undoubtedly parasites on a supposedly democratic society – but then rich parasites aren’t a rarity in the UK and wouldn’t be if the Royals left tomorrow.
If Scotland does achieve independence, I’d be far keener to see the back of the Americans than the Royals. Both might be a bonus. mind you. When people fight for freedom (or independence) they rarely achieve more than new masters.
Tom Welsh, I take it that — despite your surname — you think of yourself as an Englishman, then? I guess so, or you’d have to sign yourself Twm Y Cymro/Twm Cymreig.
Give me a free hand, and a few extensive tete-a-tetes with Albie Sachs, and I’ll take Y Cyfraith Hywel DDa and update it into a 21st century constitution and a law-code for us — the Cymry — which will be the envy even of those European countries that — unlike England — have a real, findable, precise written constitution.
The poor blighted English commons are welcome to keep the wretched mess of their law and their (nom)constitution — though I suspect that, in the novel event of them actually being asked for once, and their majority will actually being taken seriously and acted on, most of them would rather like a proper written constitution too.
The whole honours system is undemocratic. These people are not elected. The same applies for the nominations.
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The Honours Forfeiture Committee exists to consider cases where an individual’s actions subsequent to their being awarded an honour raise the question of whether they should be allowed to continue to be a holder of the honour.
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The Committee normally conducts its business by correspondence. It considers cases where an individual who has been honoured is judged to have brought the honours system into disrepute, for example if he or she:
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has been found guilty by the courts of a criminal offence and sentenced to a term of imprisonment of three months or more, or
has been censured, struck off etc by the relevant professional or other regulatory authority for action or inaction which was directly relevant to the granting of the honours.
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The Committee is not restricted to these two criteria, and if there is other compelling evidence that an individual has brought the honours system into disrepute, then it is open to the Committee to consider such cases as well.
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The Committee also considers matters of general policy regarding forfeiture.
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The Committee comprises:
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Head of the Home Civil Service (Chair)
Cabinet Secretary
Permanent Secretary, Home Office
Permanent Secretary, Scottish Executive
Treasury Solicitor and HM Procurator General and
Head of Honours and Appointments Secretariat, Cabinet Office (Secretary).
The Committee’s recommendations are submitted to The Queen through the Prime Minister.
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The subjects discussed by the Committee remain confidential. Decisions on forfeiture are published in the London Gazette.
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http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/UKgovernment/Honoursawardsandmedals/TheUKhonourssystem/DG_181375
As per usual it is not what you know but who you know that seems to be the watchword. The people who decide on the award of honours are listed here by the dozen.
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http://www.direct.gov.uk/en/Governmentcitizensandrights/UKgovernment/Honoursawardsandmedals/DG_176394
Keeping it in the family.
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http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2012/feb/01/amy-winehouse-coroner-inquest
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[…]
But Greenaway – who has now resigned – did not have sufficient legal experience in the United Kingdom when she was appointed by her husband, Dr Andrew Reid, who is the St Pancras coroner in north London.
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Reid is writing to about 30 families whose relatives were the subject of inquests carried out by his wife, offering, if they wish, to rehear their cases. Despite qualifying as a solicitor and barrister in Australia in 1999, she had not met the statutory requirement of at least five years legal experience in Britain.
[…]
Deborah Coles of Inquest, the charity that monitors coroners courts, said: “This situation highlights the antiquated nature of the coroners system and the urgent need for implementation of the Coroners and Justices Act 2009 to ensure that there’s an accountable and transparent recruitment process.”
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Under the reforms due to be introduced, all coroners’ appointments will have to be approved by the lord chief justice and chief coroner – an official who has yet to be selected.
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Inquest verdicts can normally only be overturned by a challenge in the high court. The Winehouse family said that it was taking advice on the implications of the latest developments and would decide whether it would make any requests. Her father, Mitch, at one point tweeted: “Don’t worry about coroner nonsense. We are all ok.”
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