Simon Fraser, the 11th Lord Lovat, was the last man in Britain to be executed by beheading. Fraser was in every respect a thoroughly disreputable character.
He was a rapist and a serial traitor against both sides for the Jacobites and anti-Jacobites, and one of the kinder tributes said “he deserved, if practicable, to have been hanged five several times, in five different places, and upon five different accounts at least.” In fact the demand to see the old fellah’s (he was 80 at the time) head roll at Tower Hill proved so popular that a special viewing scaffold was built for spectators, which unfortunately collapsed and led to 20 spectators joining Fraser in death.
Times were hard.
These days they are less harsh. Fred Goodwin, a City banker who, according to the Evening Standard, was ”a corporate Attila”, having gained a reputation in the City for being a fearsome outsider – being Scottish, and not educated at a public school or at Oxbridge (God, that last bit must have hurt them) has just had his Knighthood taken off him by Maggie Windsor.
Now, I’m not one to say he shouldn’t be stripped of his honours. In fact to me stripping the wretch, tarring and feathering and everything else short of a trip to Tower Hill doesn’t seem too bad an idea. And given the chance I’d strip them all of their pompous honours. But actually, Goodwin hasn’t been prosecuted, nor even struck off by his professional body.
What about that lying toerag Jeffrey Archer. Despite the fact that he was detained at Her Majesty’s pleasure after lying under oath in Her Majesty’s courts, he appears to still be allowed to wonder around with the title of Lord, and his fragrant wife Mary is a Lady too.
Lord Hannigfield and Lord Taylor of Warwick did porridge for fraudulently claiming taxpayers money, and on his release Taylor even had the nerve to say he still thought he could play a valuable role in making the laws he himself had been unable to obey. Hanningfield has been told he can go back in when he has paid his fiddled expenses back, and Taylor was given a 12-month suspension from the Lords.
Anthony Blunt and Roger Casement were stripped of their honours, (in Casement’s case it was just before he was shot so I suspect taking away his gong was the least of his worries) but again, they had broken the law – big style. But if we don’t actually need a conviction to start stripping them of their honours, don’t let’s stop with ‘Fred the Shred’… I’m sure there’s a whole host of disreputable buggers we could start sorting out.
re: Lord Lovat “what is treason? It is a matter of dates”. Casement was hung not shot! I am all for striping people of ill deserved Honours but hand in hand with that The Comservative party shoulg be strpped of of the cash that was pais to them as the price of the honour !
GW
You’re right about Casement… I was thinking of Connolly!
The whole episode is interesting on a number of levels Bob. It laid bares the contradictions inherent within capitalism,but of course the blame has to go elsewhere. You can imagine Boardrooms across the land ‘Buffy old boy we’re bolloxed,that incompetent Scottish twat has blown it for all of us, it’s there for all to see the only losers in our system are those who can least afford to lose. We’ll just blame the oick,the press will go along with it and I’m sure I can pull a few strings an get his knighthood taken off him,give it a couple of months and we can get back to normal’ It also shows the nature of the Honours system(should be scrapped anyway) but who chooses these people? they are all lying low. And if Ed Moribund comes on tv again and says the he knows the Labour government didnt get everything right. WTF was he and the other careerist politicians who are tripping over each other to distance themselves, doing during their time in government.
Roger Casement broke the law?
Well, he was tried by the courts and found guilty, let’s put it that way. There has always been some doubt over whether he had actually broken the law, but he was found guilty of treason if my memory serves.
Top of my list is Lord Ashcroft or as yesterday’s Indy reported “Lord Ashdown originally made his £1.1bn fortune…”.
He was hanged on a ‘comma’.
Correct, but convicted all the same.
I was feeling just a tiny pang of sympathy for the former Sir Fred being made to take the rap for all our economic woes but, now you’ve told me that the wretch didn’t even go to a proper school or decent university, I’ve none left at all.
We could get rid of the whole honours system but that will never happen as long as their are Whips in the House of Commons who aren’t allowed to use leather whips. It’s hard enough as it is sometimes for them to get disgruntled and/or time-serving MPs who are past all hope of promotion through the government lobbies.
Without the promise of a nice little peerage or knighthood to reward the dismal cannon fodder with for good behaviour we might end up with independently minded MPs voting according to their consciences or, horror, according to their constituents’ wishes. And you wouldn’t want that would you?
“In fact to me stripping the wretch, tarring and feathering and everything else short of a trip to Tower Hill doesn’t seem too bad an idea. And given the chance I’d strip them all of their pompous honours.”
“ But actually, Goodwin hasn’t been prosecuted, nor even struck off by his professional body.”
And is that what passes for logical judicious thinking in Labour party circles?
Sadly, as with so many things, I very much doubt the Party is fully in tune with my thinking on this… but I’m a patient man!
He is just a decoy duck! The honours thing is just a symbolic gessture.What is needed is a spot of punitive taxation!
Come back Robin Hood or should it be Sir Robin of Locksley!
In the spirit of rehabilitation rather punishment,perhaps some re-eduction. Put the bankers to work in Credit Unions (with plenty of supervsion so they dont fuck them up as well)And the Credit Union managers in charge of the banks.