British legislators are demonstrating that Britain may be the only developed nation in which it is believed that feudalism is worth defending.
MP Gordon Prentice has told the head of the civil service that the “honours system”, under which the state awards feudal titles, will fall into disrepute if Fred Goodwin, former chief executive of the failed RBS bank, is allowed to keep his knighthood. If his demand is met Mr. Prentice will be able to stop calling Mr. Goodwin “Sir Fred.”
Seventy MPs want the same and have signed a motion calling for. Mr. Goodwin, who has refused to give up his £700,000 a year pension, to forfeit the feudal title.
Apparently the honours system was not made disreputable when two citizens with the titled of Lord, a higher position in the class structure, were sentenced in recent years to prison terms. A system in which the state spends the people’s money placing citizens into positions in a class hierarchy was unblemished.
Apparently the honours system was not blemished last year when the legislators who are able to sit in parliament without election by the people because they have the title of Lord, sabotaged a change in the law agreed by legislators like Gordon Prentice. The reform would have allowed the British people to exercise what should be their democratic right to elect all their legislators.
But if a “knight” refuses to forgo part of his pension as a punishment for guiding his bank onto the rocks the precious “honours system” will be shamed, at least in the eyes of “Labour” legislators.