Letter: Honours Should Be Reviewed When Appropriate

Published on: 15 May, 2025
Updated on: 15 May, 2025

From John Ferns

In response to: Woking MP Calls for Former Borough Council CEO To Be Stripped of Honour

I have considerable sympathy for the people of Woking — and indeed for those of us in West Surrey now facing the knock-on effects — all due to what can only be described as the unchecked hubris of one individual.

The parallels with the RBS collapse in 2012 are hard to ignore. In both cases, overconfident leadership pursued high-risk strategies with little meaningful oversight, and it is ordinary residents who are now left to pick up the tab.

The precedent of stripping Fred Goodwin of his knighthood following the banking collapse showed that the honours system can and should respond when trust in public service is fundamentally breached. The situation in Woking — now documented in public reports and raised in Parliament — surely warrants similar scrutiny. An OBE granted for public service cannot stand unchallenged when the consequences of that service have proved so disastrously costly.

Accountability must count for something. If not now, then when?