World Briefs
Ex-RBS chief’s honour stripped
The former chief executive of the Royal Bank of Scotland, Fred Goodwin, has had his knighthood stripped by Queen Elizabeth II over his role in the bank’s near financial collapse back in 2008, it was announced yesterday.
The total injection of taxpayers’ money into RBS so far amounts to €54.8 billion. A statement from the Cabinet Office, which is the government department that handles the honours system, said Mr Goodwin had brought the whole system into “disrepute”.
Zooey ‘most desirable’ woman
Actress Zooey Deschanel has edged ahead of figures such as Pippa Middleton and Emma Watson to the title of the year’s most desirable woman. The US star, who heads the cast in Channel 4 series New Girl, topped a poll of more than 150,000 UK readers of website AskMen.com.
The highest ranked Briton is Harry Potter actress Watson at number two, while Pippa and her sister the Duchess of Cambridge both figure in the top 10, at six and 10.
Shows set aside for ‘token women’
Hit television shows including QI and Mock the Week have been singled out for having “token women” guests in a BBC-commissioned report.
The report on how age is portrayed in the media was drawn up by the Creative Diversity Network and praised well-known characters including Dame Maggie Smith’s Dowager Countess from Downton Abbey, Patrick Trueman in Eastenders and Betty Turpin in Coronation Street as “strong characters that did not seem to deteriorate as they aged”.
It found viewers felt certain programmes benefited from older presenters with “the gravitas to hold the audience”, but that older men were treated differently from older women.
Press Bill is ‘a Pandora’s box’
Introducing a new Parliamentary Bill to regulate newspapers would “open a Pandora’s box” which could stifle freedom of speech, the chairman of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC) warned yesterday. Lord Hunt of Wirral told the Leveson Inquiry that many MPs and lords have told him they would try to use any legislation to control the press.
The Conservative peer, who became PCC chairman in October, said his 35 years in Parliament had taught him to oppose any form of statutory regulation of newspapers.