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People power: Sir Fred Goodwin's house was vandalised and his family went into hiding after the public learned of the size of his pension pot

IN HIS book Empire, the historian Niall Ferguson argues that the decline of the British Empire began not in the vaults of an exhausted, post-Great War Treasury, but in the minds of a nation wearied by iron notions of Victorian self-restraint.

Reciting George Orwell’s tale of the shooting of a rogue elephant while working as an assistant superintendent in Burma, and the writer’s conviction that “A white man mustn’t be frightened in front of ‘natives’”, Ferguson writes: “Before the 1920s the British had been remarkably good … at taking their Empire seriously. That in itself was an important source of imperial strength, Many a heroic deed was done simply because it was what a white man in authority was expected to do”. Unremarked-upon self-sacrifice had been the order of the day. But then stiff upper lips began to loosen somewhat as people began to evaluate where such attitudes had led the country.

It is a convincing argument, and most people will be pleased that such ramrod disportment has been banished to the pages of books like Ferguson’s. But has the pendulum swung too far? Do our leaders demonstrate any traits more prominently than self-interest and self-preservation? Do they provide good examples of responsibility? Do they deserve to lead?

The last two years have thrown up several instance of spectacularly poor leadership – leadership, rather than management, although the two often go hand-in-hand.

In an ever-more-crowded field, one name stands out: Sir Fred Goodwin. This is ‘Fred the Shred’, noted for his ability to rip to pieces any executive daft enough to turn up to “morning prayers” without the information that he required to hand. He would often round off a Malcom Tuckeresque dressing down with one of his preferred phrases, like “Welcome to the big city”. You can almost hear the “laddie” at the end.

Goodwin’s inexhaustible appetite for expansion drove increasingly desperate sales staff to ever-more risky markets such as sub-prime, both directly and through complex financial instruments that bundled up bad mortgages to be sold on, usually to institutions with devil-may-care attitudes to due diligence, like RBS. His never-stayed whip hand also put the bank on the acquisition trail, overextended by amounts previously thought unworkable, and eventually to the near-disastrous acquisition of ABN Amro that almost sunk it and, ultimately, the British economy. The Dutch bank may come back to haunt us a second time, as it remains dangerously exposed to the Dubai bubble, whose implosion continues to ripple through world markets.

As we all know, this single-minded, 50-year-old bully was rewarded with a pension pot worth nearly £700,000 a year. Regardless of what he was due, it is widely considered that he had a moral obligation to leave that money where it is – a belief that extended as far as the Prime Minster, who coined the phrase “no reward for failure”. This was in part acknowledged by Goodwin, as RBS announced in June this year an approximate halving of his entitlement, giving him a pot of around £8 million.

His legacy is alive today in the RBS board, which threw its toys out of the pram this week over Treasury reluctance to allow this 70% publicly-owned bank to cough up £2bn in staff bonuses, double what it distributed last year. Coincidentally – and, in another example of regarding the precise wording of a contract rather than its spirit, Goodwin’s reduced pension came after the completion of an internal inquiry into his conduct, which found no wrongdoing on his part.

More pressingly, many HMRC staff have raised concerns that the conduct of bankers will lead to a potentially huge dip in tax revenues, as the man and woman in the street will become involved in a little evasion of their own – having seen for themselves executives like Goodwin sailing away from the mess they created with nary a spot of dust upon them – while arguing that the Government will only misspend their contributions on the already-well-off.

Yet Gordon Brown is in no position to lecture RBS on the responsibilities of leadership. In September, some three years after she helped draft the Immigration, Asylum and Nationality Act of 2006, Baroness Scotland – the Attorney General and chief legal adviser to the Government – was placed under investigation following allegations that she had employed Lolohai Tapui, a Tongan and illegal immigrant, as a housekeeper.

Lady Scotland was fined £5,000 but allowed to remain in her £113,000 by the Prime Minister, even though she faced stiff political criticism from within her own ranks, including from Labour MP Graham Stringer, who accused the Government of “passing laws it is not applying to itself”. Meanwhile, Tapui could serve up to 10 years in prison if she is found guilty of fraudulently claiming entitlement to work in the UK and possessing a Tongan passport with a false UK visa stamp.

It used to be that it would take just a tabloid allegation of improper conduct for a Government minister to receive an invitation to explain himself (it was always a he) in Downing Street, before a further inducement to fall on his sword. Then they had to be dragged, kicking, screaming, and undignified. Now they simply refuse to go. Maybe Brown is out of friends. Maybe he doesn’t see the resentment at this abuse of privilege. Like Goodwin, she should have walked, refusing recompense.

There is an argument that this kind of retribution results in sackcloth and ashes. That is not required, although many would make an exception for Sharon Shoesmith. Reports in October that she had become ”suicidal” emerged as part of her evidence to a judicial inquiry into Education Secretary Ed Balls’ intervention to have her sacked from her job as head of social services at Haringey Council in the wake of the Baby P scandal. The 62-year-old is thought to be claiming up to £1 million in compensation and damages, and may bring as many as four cases to seek complete redress.

Shoesmith was never going to get a fair hearing from a media that demonised her to correctly chime with the horror and anger of the nation over such a death, coming as it did only a decade after the similarly appalling murder of Victoria Climbie in the same borough of London. But she might have been owed some little sympathy over her legal claims were it not for one incident that followed the Baby P ruling. Before a room of aghast journalists, Shoesmith brisked through a hastily-called press conference with a range of charts that laid out – in many, many figures – how Haringey social services had been hitting its targets. It took those reporters little time to recover from their shock and roundly damn a council chief for reducing the lives of disadvantaged children under her watch to a series of statistics.

Again, we return to the argument that she should have jumped rather than resisting being pushed. Her £113,000 remuneration should have behoved her to ensure she was across everything in her department. The responsibility for her staff’s failures which led to Peter Connolly’s killing lays squarely on her shoulders and she should have lost her job for presiding over a system that allowed a child to die.

We will no doubt learn of Shoesmith’s closely drawn-up contract that – probably like Goodwin’s - concentrates plenty on reward but little on consequence if either of them came up short, which they unarguably did. Such advantageous agreements have grown up partly as a result of the left’s wholehearted embrace of the rights of the individual in place of collective responsibility. And nowhere is this better demonstrated than in the world of celebrities.

For generations, we have hardly expected our foremost talents to behave in ways similar to those in public service. Talk of setting an example would always be lost on brawlers like Joey Barton. But they are role models, and bad role models at that.

Katie Price is one gone wrong. Why did the public send her back night after night to ever-more revolting Bush Tucker trials on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here? Were they appalled that, after enduring a bruising and very public split from husband Peter Andre, she disregarded her pastoral duties to their children at such a crucial time to fly 11,000 miles around the world in order to get her own life back in balance? Whatever it was, it resulted in Price, a hard and unsympathetic character, abandoning this introspection. Perhaps she will realise that the country wants to see less of her, but somehow you doubt it.

The forgotten art of good leadership has assumed a greater importance this week with South Wales East AM Mohammad Asghar crossing the Siambr floor from Plaid Cymru to the Conservative benches. Technically, he is no leader, not within any of the parties he has joined, at any rate. But any representative should be equal to the restraint and sacrifice we expect from those we elect to office.

Much coverage of of this defection has concentrated on his brief reasoning for the switch: “For some time now I have felt out of tune with the views and policies of Plaid Cymru. My politics are very much in line with wanting a stronger Wales within a successful United Kingdom.” Presumably, he regards “some time” as less than two years, because back in January 2008, he told the Socialist Unity website: ”Central to our vision is the creation of a proper Parliament with the ability to pass its own laws and with the power to achieve the aspirations of the people of Wales. More powers would mean that we could follow a distinct path with the best policies for Wales, decided in Wales and unhindered by any interference from the UK Government. Many of our social justice objectives can only be achieved if we have taxation powers, for example.”

Unconvincing explanations and consequential electoral arguments aren’t as important as Asghar’s failure to communicate with his staff in any way – effectively fired by press conference – something that smacks of an absence of concern and duty which calls into question his suitability for office. Instead, much has been made of Plaid’s fast track selection process that had him shortly appointed as a regional list member. But this says far more about the age we live in than it does about the party.

Asghar is a trained accountant, a clever man. However, anyone who seeks to join a party is obliged to become acquainted with its policies and views. He bears a personal responsibility for his failure to understand Plaid’s aims, particularly as independence is the party’s principal leitmotif. At the very least, he must have heard it discussed.

A tendency to naked opportunism seems far more plausible. His reasons may have been personal (as has been rumoured), they might have been genuine (however worrying that remains), or he may have seen the General Election coming and thrown his lot in with the likely winners.

But by remaining where he is, by not having the courage of his convictions to stand down and fight on a Conservative platform, by clinging on without legislative recrimination he, like all the others, only impart the impression that they put themselves before their duties as leaders.

In doing so, they demonstrate an expected right to authority, and forget that it is earned as respect is earned. Because they have demonstrated little moral obligation or personal responsibility as leaders, and because provision at law has not been made for such eventualities, they set a precedent. A precedent that could drag us away from civilised society and back to Dark Age feudalism.