Who's next in line for ritual humiliation? The last person to be stripped of a knighthood was Robert Mugabe in 2008. His title was honorary, as was that of Nicolai Ceausescu, who lost his in 1989, on the day before he was executed during the Romanian uprising. Before them, Anthony Blunt, the traitor who gave British secrets to the Soviets, was similarly disgraced. The criteria, therefore, for losing a knighthood have been exceptional: treason, criminality and brutal, despotic governance. Where, in this scale of enormity, does Fred Goodwin - as we must now call him - appear? He has committed no crime; he was not severely admonished by the Financial Services Authority's report into the collapse of the Royal Bank of Scotland, of which he was chief executive. The decision to strip him of his knighthood sets a new benchmark, whereby anyone identified as a convenient scapegoat for the country's woes can be similarly disparaged. We are no admirers of Mr Goodwin, whose egregious errors as head of RBS required a £45 billion bail-out by the taxpayer. But in what way is he different from Sir Tom McKillop, the bank's then chairman? Is he, too, to lose his knighthood? Where does the witch hunt stop? Alan Greenspan, the former chairman of the Federal Reserve, retains his honorary knighthood - and yet his monetary policy arguably did more damage to the global economy than anything Mr Goodwin managed to achieve. More to the point, why - as we asked last week - is the Honours Forfeiture Committee, a shadowy and allegedly independent body, not now looking into the peerages of Lord Archer (jailed for perjury), or Lords Hanningfield and Taylor (both jailed for expenses fraud)? It has surely exceeded its remit, which is to act only when an individual "has been found guilty by the courts of a criminal offence... or has been censured/struck off etc by the relevant regulatory authority or professional body for actions or failures to act which are directly relevant to the granting of the honour." In America, if executives are suspected of committing an offence, they are tried and dealt with severely. Here, in the absence of any evidence of criminal wrongdoing, we choose ritual humiliation instead. It has been a disastrous few days for this country's reputation as an attractive place for financiers and businessmen. First, Stephen Hester, the new boss of RBS, was forced to relinquish his bonus; now Mr Goodwin has been dragged to the stocks. David Cameron and the other leading politicians who have encouraged this populist bloodlust should be ashamed of themselves. Now that the precedent has been set, the mob will want more, because it always does. So who will be next?