Knights for the knackers.

Yesterday's decision, by a Committee apparently including several senior civil servants, represents the chance for Britain to finally shake off some of the sickness deeply embedded in its society and system of governance.

This blog has for some time been calling for the bringing to account of certain of the most outrageous examples of the deep corruption at the top of our civil service. Of course matters cannot be left to rest with those individuals alone, but it is an ideal place for the next steps to be taken after the shredding of Sir Fred Goodwin, upon which I commented yesterday.

Two candidates for immediate consideration for having their knighthood's removed already selected by this blog for earlier consideration are Sir John Cunliffe, here and here, and Sir John Chilcot the first of many posts on whom is here.  A third individual may be a better first case, however, in view of the appalling mess that has been allowed to develop at the Ministry of Defence, where waste and inefficiency and over-staffing is endemic. I do not know the individual(s) concerned but Dr Liam Fox probably has a good grasp of those facts. The deaths of how many servicemen and women might have been saved had the mandarins in charge of the MOD over recent years, either had ability or a shred of managerial ability let alone decency and a normally developed conscience?

In considering Sir John Cunliffe, the case for which has been considerably strengthened since the EU Council meeting in Brussels this Monday, I recommend reading this posting from Kosmopolito titled Cameron's diplomatic failure on his treacherous performance in Brussels, from which I quote this passage in particular:

Cameron’s misjudgment

Both, Die Welt and The Economist have similar stories about what exactly happened during the summit. It turns out that Cameron misjudged the mood among fellow leaders during the summit.  Cameron thought that the ‘Protocol 12′ solution was the preferred method for the eurozone – giving him leverage through a unanimous decision-making procedure. Bagehot thinks Cameron overplayed his hand, others said he lost his gamble (or verzockt as Udo van Kampen called it on German TV)   However, if he had listened to what politicians, diplomats and media commentators  in Germany or France said during the last weeks he should have known better. Plus  he had no allies, hence his isolation was not a surprise. Simply put, Cameron is not in the loop, maybe because he pulled out of the EPP… In any case,  his advisors should be sacked.
Cameron is not a diplomat and I am not sure he actually enjoys summits. Deep in his heart he is a eurosceptic (although the UK government has followed a pragmatic EU policy) but he comes across as arrogant and bossy. Especially during the eurozone crisis a sense of schadenfreude dominated the UK’s rhethoric.  The UK’s bilateral relations with EU member states have not been sufficiently developed. Cameron is like a robot in this respect. Whatever the issue somewhere in Europe he starts his monologue about British interests and why the EU is such a bad idea. This is hardly a good starting point for a constructive debate. Moreover, it seems difficult for him to build personal relationships with other European leaders – a necessity to win an argument at a summit.

Here lies the clue to another new dawn that has arrived today, as Alistair Darling's strident protests on the Radio 4 Today make clear that he has fully grasped, that being that after the smarmy, slimy, self-satisfied and thoroughly disgusting senior civil servants have their worst examples shorn of their honours, as night follows day so must go their ill-gotten gains and following that come the real villains, who should have been in charge of these opportunistic incompetents, the politicians themselves!

More Ironies Too posts on Britain's corrupt civil service are here.