THE Queen giveth and she taketh away. That’s the message for Fred Goodwin who can no longer call himself Sir Fred.

He was stripped of his knighthood after it was decided that the disgraced former chief executive of RBS no longer deserved his title.

The thinking is that as it was his dodgy decisions which led to a financial crisis from which Britain is still struggling to recover, his knighthood for services to banking was a bit embarrassing.

I doubt anyone will lose too much sleep over the move.

By all accounts Mr Goodwin enjoyed a rather substantial pay-off when he resigned and still takes home a hefty pension.

That doesn’t seem fair, of course, but stripping him of his knighthood still feels like an unpleasant move mostly based on a desire to demonstrate that at least one head has rolled for this disaster.

Of course, we know it hasn’t really.

If Fred Goodwin did something wrong, why has he not been arrested and charged? Ah yes, making bad decisions is not in itself a crime.

If, as chief executive of RBS, he must take ultimate responsibility for its fall why was he not unceremoniously sacked? I don’t know the answer to that but it clearly didn’t happen.

Instead, four years have passed before suddenly the mysterious Forfeiture Committee has decided we simply cannot carry on another day with Sir Fred.

That feels more like vengeance than justice to me.

It sets a rather strange precedent too.

Presumably Mr Goodwin once did something deemed worthy of his award for “services to banking”.

Is that action now null and void because he later made mistakes?

So if an actor is honoured for services to entertainment, will we now strip them of their honour if they make a film that bombs? (Better keep an eye on those ratings for Strictly, Sir Bruce).

I’m joking, of course, but it does illustrate the inherent weakness in honouring someone for life.

To borrow a banking phrase, the value of your investment can go down as well as up.

Mr Goodwin has joined a new elite of ex-knights that includes dictators Robert Mugabe and Nicholae Ceausescu.

To which I can only say: Are we dishing honours out to anyone?

And maybe that really is the point.

Perhaps the Queen should just be more careful about who she taps on the shoulder.