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February 1st, 2012 
FAKE NEWS for the Zionist agenda
By
Ruth Sunderland
Last updated at 11:37 AM on 1st February 2012
The government’s move to strip former Royal Bank of Scotland boss Fred Goodwin of his knighthood has led to calls for ministers to consider inflicting similar punishment on other banking grandees who were implicated in the near collapse of the British financial system.
John Mann, a Labour MP who sits on the Treasury select committee, said: ‘The precedent has been set. It wasn’t Fred Goodwin on his own who caused the problems – he was part of a team of people.’
He added: ‘You can’t get a gong for services to the banking industry and then bring it to its knees and expect to keep the honour. I’m surprised it has taken so long.’
Facing pressure: The other knights and a Lord who helped bring Britain’s banking system to its knees
Sir Tom McKillop, who chaired RBS
between 2006 and 2009, failed to curb Goodwin’s vainglorious bid for
ABN-Amro that put the bank on the course to self-destruction, and was
blamed for letting down shareholders.
‘The precedent has been set. It wasn’t Fred Goodwin on his own who caused the problems – he was part of a team of people. You can’t get a gong for services to the banking industry and
then bring it to its knees and expect to keep the honour.’
John Mann, Treasury select committee
But the former pharmaceuticals
boss was knighted in 2002 for his contribution to the drugs industry
before the financial crisis began, unlike Goodwin who received his
honour for services to banking.
Fellow knights and peers who occupied
exalted roles at failed banks include Sir James Crosby, who was at the
helm at Halifax and then HBOS from 1999 to 2006, the period that sowed
the seeds for the bank’s downfall through reckless funding policies.
After handing over to his protégé,
Andy Hornby, he has kept a low profile, but serves as chairman of
financial services software group Misys and serves as a non-executive
director at Compass.
BLIND EYE: SIR TOM McKILLOP
Sir Tom, who was knighted in 2002 for services to the pharmaceutical industry before he became a senior banker, chaired RBS between 2006 and 2009.
He failed to curb Goodwin’s hubris and allowed him to make the vainglorious bid for Dutch financiers ABN-Amro, which put the bank on the course to self-destruction.
After retiring in 2009 he admitted to members of the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee that he had no qualifications in banking. He apologised for the financial crisis
RECKLESS: SIR JAMES CROSBY
Sir James,who was knighted in 2006 for services to the financial sector after it is believed he was recommended by former Prime Minister Gordon Brown.
He headed Halifax and then HBOS, created by a merger with Bank of Scotland, between 2001 and 2006. He sowed the seeds for its bailout by ignoring advice to avoid risky investments.
Despite fears that his own bank was badly regulated, he also served as deputy chairman of the FSA and – according to George Osborne – ‘bears a heavy responsibility’ for the crisis.
SCHMOOZER: LORD STEVENSON
Lord Stevenson was a made a peer in 2009 – the year he became chairman of HBOS – after a long career as a businessmen that also led to him being awarded with a CBE and knighted.
He developed a reputation as a schmoozer, a man who could help smooth relations and fix deals during his enure which ended in 2009 following the disastrous Lloyds merger.
HBOS – which had been the biggest mortgage lender – was badly hit by deterioration of the housing market and other toxic loans. The Government now owns 40% of the ‘superbank’.
MENTOR: SIR GEORGE MATHEWSON
Sir George, who was knighted for his services to Scottish business in 1999, served as CEO of RBS between 1992 and 2001, when he became chairman of the doomed bank.
He presided over a Perrine of international expansion. His defining career moment was – with the help of his protege Fred Goodwin – the 2000 £20bn buy-out of NatWest.
Sir George is credited with helping to develop RBS’s ruthless business model and fostering the ambition of Goodwin, whose unchecked appetite for expansion led to its near downfall.
Lord Dennis Stevenson, who chaired
HBOS between 1999 and 2009, will also come under the spotlight, as will
Sir Peter Burt, the erstwhile chief executive of Bank of Scotland before
it merged with Halifax in 2001.
ARCH-RIVAL: SIR PETER BURT
Sir Peter, who was knighted in 2003 for services to banking, was CEO of the Bank of Scotland between 1996 and 2001. After the merger he was HBOS’s deputy chair until 2003.
Running a rival Edinburgh bank, he became Fred Goodwin’s nemesis. It is claimed that Goodwin only became interested in NatWest bid when he knew Sir Peter was bidding.
Sir Peter, who also served as a non-executive director of Dyslexia Scotland, engineered the 2001 merger with Halifax in an effort to continue the bank’s expansion.
Burt – who in his heyday was an
arch-rival of both Goodwin and his mentor Sir George Mathewson – held
the reins at Bank of Scotland when corporate banker Peter Cummings
started to amass the portfolio of debt that brought HBOS to its knees.
Burt is now chairman of private equity group Promethean.
Despite acting as a father-figure to
Goodwin, Mathewson had left RBS before its worst excesses took hold, but
has since been backed by the bank in a new small business lending
venture, Shawbrook.
Critics will argue that regulators and
central bankers bear as much responsibility for the financial meltdown
as the commercial bankers themselves.
Alan Greenspan, the former head of the
US Federal Reserve, controversially received an honorary knighthood
from Gordon Brown at the same time as Goodwin during the height of the
credit boom. He has since been blamed by many for being the prime mover
in bringing the world to the brink of financial ruin.
The head of the FSA as it failed badly
in its regulation of Northern Rock, HBOS and RBS was Sir Callum
McCarthy, who was knighted in 2005 for services to the finance sector.
Rogues lineup: Lord Stevenson, Former HBOS CEO Andy Hornby, Fred Goodwin and Tom McKillop being grilled by the House of Commons Treasury Select Committee in February 2009
Reports prepared by the FSA on the failures of Northern Rock and RBS
acknowledged serious shortcomings by the watchdog in their prudential
supervision.
One friend of Goodwin said: ‘Fred,
whatever you think of him, did his job. Is Tom McKillop going to lose
his knighthood? Are all the members of the scrutiny committee going to
be punished? Is anyone in the FSA?
‘It’s an amazing case study of what the government will do when it’s playing to the public gallery.’
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A parcel of rogues but a bigger parcel o rogues put them where they are.
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MB, UK. Wise up mate. Don’t think the FSA will do anything. They are part of the whole conspiracy and are just there to make people like you think something will be done. They’ve got the whitewash ready.
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Whoever believes anybody else is going to be stripped of their honours or knighthoods is deluded. This whole honours system has been discredited and eroded and should be done away with. Dont expect the establishment to take any interest in that direction.
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“Pathetic witch hunt that achieves nothing,” declares ‘Surreymac’. I think it achieves much: a feeling of satisfaction among millions that they can bring the greedy and the dishonest among the financial fraternity down and subject them to the derision their characters merit. We don’t have enough festivals in this country; why don’t we institute a “Strip the Sirs” or a “Trash the Trinkets” Day?
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It wasn’t Fred Goodwin on his own who caused the problems – he was part of a team of people…….no he means group of people including the last govt and more so the regulators.
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I do love these MPs calling for these others to be stripped of honours after the way they behaved in the expenses scandal.
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Just as an example of what the world of business thinks; one of the people pictured above giving evidence to the House of Commons, Andy Hornby of HBoS, was, after leaving HBoS made CEO of Boots the Chemist and is now a director of Coral. He was partially responsible for the downfall of HBoS costing thousands of people in the north their livelihoods which in turn has had a marked effect on local economies. This shows they, not we are all in it together.
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This isn’t playing to the public gallery, this is a gallery of unworthies in the first place, they should never have been given gongs. They are workers just like everyone else only far too well paid for incompetence.
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‘It’s an amazing case study of what the government will do when it’s playing to the public gallery.’
That is what they are supposed to do.
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“You are a nest of liars and thieves, I intend to rout you out and by the grace of god, will rout you out” – Andrew Jackson
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