Wednesday, March 04, 2009

Harriet's Little Porkie Over Sir Fred's K

Harriet Harman told the commons today (in reply to a question from Elfyn Llwyd) that Sir Fred got his knighthood for his work with the Prince’s Trust. Well, not according to the official record.
In the London Gazette June 12th 2004 the reason for Sir Fred’s K is listed as “services to banking”

Frederick Anderson Goodwin, Group Chief Executive,
Royal Bank of Scotland. For services to Banking.

Indeed the No.10 briefing on the honours list said:

In the business world there was a DBE for Deirdre Hutton, Executive Chair of the National Consumer Council who had done a huge amount over the last decade to help consumers and promote their interests. There were Knighthoods for David Bell, the Chair of the Financial Times Group; Hugh Collum, Chair of British Nuclear Fuels plc; Peter Crane, the dynamic Director of the Royal Botanic Gardens at Kew; Fred Goodwin, Group Chief Executive at the Royal Bank of Scotland where he undertook many challenging projects that benefited both his company and the Scottish economy as a whole; and Julian Horn-Smith, the highly respected Group Chief Operations Officer for Vodafone.

No mention of the Prince’s Trust in either citation.

Perhaps Ms Harman would like to apologise during Business Questions for misleading the House.

20 comments:

Colin said...

"Perhaps Ms Harman would like to apologise during Business Questions for misleading the House."

When the ship comes over The Westwood, as they say in Beverley...

Oldrightie said...

You couldn't make it up!

moorlandhunter said...

She is a horrid thick skinned woman and would no doubt reply to this untruth with a Ballesy speak, ‘So weak,’ or to us in the real world, ‘so what.’

Roger Thornhill said...

She really needs to be removed from office.

Benny said...

That's a bare faced lie. How on earth did she expect to get away with it?? Shocking

Tony_E said...

Just another little lie to distract us all from the much bigger one.....it all started in America, it wasnae me, I didn't do it, it was all the English bankers fault....etc

Dave H said...

Harriet has problem with apologies. One minute she says they should be given, the next she denies saying any such thing.

Gordon doesn't suffer from that problem at all. It's so much simpler for him.

Alex said...

Nobody gets a knighthood for their work for the Princes Trust. The volunteers who work for the Princes Trust get a Christmas Card from Prince Charles.

Some bigwigs at big companies get a CBE/KBE for opening up their company's chequebook and turning up at a cocktail party to gladhand HRH PoW, but that is another matter.

Ian Simcox said...

I'm willing to accept the apology (other than the bit where she tries to cover her back with the Prince's Trust bit), given it has come out straight away.

She can't be expected to know exactly what people were given their knighthood's for, and she did say 'I think ...'. Honest mistake in my book.

Even so, poor showing from her today.

Guthrum said...

Cracking stuff- its just like the dying days of the Major Government, the lies,the sleaze, the desperation and the tears on on daily basis

JuliaM said...

"Oh well, hopefully it was just an honest mistake, and not a way to weasel out of answering an awkward question."

Ah, the audacity of hope... ;)

Paul Halsall said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Paul Halsall said...

Oops. Posted the deleted comment in the wrong thread.

Anonymous said...

Now they have given a K to Ted Kennedy. How will Harperson spin that. Was Ted given his K for services to "swimming and fund raising".

Mirtha Tidville said...

She only says these things cos she`s thick.........

Conand said...

'challenging projects that benefited both his company and the Scottish economy as a whole'

I suppose it is quite challenging to wreck a huge (and at the time well regarded) bank to such a degree that the Scottish economy as a whole (+ the UK economy, as a whole) was seriously undermined.

Harman is factually challenged and Brown is morally challenged.

Unsworth said...

Well she did rather more than get it a bit wrong. What she actually told the House (having mentioned Goodwin's work for the Prince's Trust as being the reason) was specifically that the Knighthood 'was not for services to banking' - and she emphasised the word 'not' in her reply. It's all recorded on the BBC Parliament PMQs site (and I wonder how long it will be before that suddenly disappears).

In other words this was a barefaced lie by Harman. She should be called to the House to provide her explanation as to how she came to make that statement. It's all very jolly saying 'I think' this that and the other, this woman is an experienced Minister of State, making a formal statement to Parliament. She had the option of offering a written reply, but chose instead to deliberately mislead the House.

Now she has the gall to put out a retrospective statement which in itself bears no relationship to the truth.

'I think' Harman is a liar, full stop.

Martin S said...

Has she always had such a trenchnat disregard for the truth?

Bill Quango MP said...

the Knighthood 'was not for services to banking' - and she emphasised the word 'not' in her reply. ..In other words this was a barefaced lie by Harman.

Damn right it was UNSWORTH. She used the question to get the message out LIVE and in every media outlet, that Sir Shred had not been given a knighthood by this decrepit government for banking, but for Chaaarriiiddddeee.

A great stinker. So she then goes and says, "Oh really? I must have inadvertently got this wrong, what a silly girly I am. Please print a retraction on page 15."

Well, I suppose its all right. I mean if I inadvertently called our Harriet a two faced, scheming, evil, podgy, foul smelling, haddock faced, butt ugly, knife wielding, man hating,incompetent and incontinent waste of space...

And that turned to be a slight mistake, why then I would publish a full and frank retraction on one of Iain's old posts about West Ham or Mama Mia. Seems fair.

Anonymous said...

Apologize ... for what ? The telling of lies is official New Labour policy.