Harman apologises for Sir Fred gaffe
By politics.co.uk staff
Harriet Harman has apologised for wrongly informing MPs that Sir Fred Goodwin was given his knighthood for charitable work rather than banking.
She made the comments during yesterday’s prime minister’s question, where she stood in for Gordon Brown due to his trip to Washington.
“I think Sir Fred was nominated for a knighthood because of his services for the Prince’s Trust,” she told a Tory backbencher.
“I understand it was not in recognition of his services to banking.”
But her office quickly retracted that comment later, when it discovered he was given the knighthood for ‘services to banking’.
It’s the second time Mr Harman has found herself in trouble over Sir Fred, with comments over the weekend about the government taking his pension back radically overstepping the mark set by the prime minister.
