The announcement that the Queen has accepted advice to strip the knighthood from Fred Goodwin, the former boss of the Royal Bank of Scotland, brings into focus two models – the old-fashioned but still admired sense of public duty that motivates the Queen, and the prevailing ethos of business and finance where all that matters is the bottom line. It was that which drove Mr Goodwin (as he now is) to take Britain’s largest bank to the brink of the abyss, pulled back only by a vast rescue package supplied by the British taxpayer, which in turn caused immense damage to the public finances.

This was also undoubtedly a factor in the bad-tempered debate about the remuneration of his successor, Stephen Hester, who was first disposed to accept, and then persuaded to reject, a bonus of just under a million pounds in shares. It took him a while to realise that the bottom line was not the only thing that mattered and that the wider public good also came into the calculation. If business reputations could be given monetary value, the good name of RBS would have lost considerably more than a million pounds in the process.

The repeated assertion that the forces of secularisation are trying to drive religion out of the “public square” has distracted attention from an even more fundamental danger – the retreat of morality itself from the public to the private sphere. This being the year of the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee, the time has surely come to restate the importance of morality, duty and the civic virtues in public life. The ethos of banking in Britain used to be as much about service to the community as about profit, but that was swept aside in the last two decades as being inefficient and old-fashioned, a brake on profit. Perhaps all banks – especially “Royal” ones – should put a picture of the Queen prominently on display in their headquarters and branches, not to prove their patriotism but to remind themselves that what ...

Once again the Vatican has responded to a whiff of scandal in a way that makes it worse. Throughout the long and agonising saga of clerical child abuse, there were voices saying that it was all “got up” by the media, some denying that there was any substance to it at all. Sadly, that is how the curial machinery has chosen to deal with recent allegations of financial rather than sexual irregu­larity, even threatening legal action against the television station that broadcast them. But blaming the messenger is no use. The Greek historian, Plutarch, records how Tigranes had someone beheaded for warning of the approach of his enemy, Lucullus, “so no man dared bring him further information”.

What will curial officials who have seen things that disturb them make of the example of Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who was deputy governor of Vatican City until he tried blowing the whistle on what he considered corrupt practices in the awarding of contracts? He was whisked away to America. And when Italian television drew attention to these facts, it was blamed by the Vatican press office – undoubtedly under orders from higher up – for mischief-making.

This is despite the fact that the Vatican has not attempted to deny the authenticity of the documents that fell into the hands of journalists. These were messages Archbishop Viganò had sent to the Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, and to Pope Benedict himself, reporting “many situations of corruption and abuse of power that have long been ingrained in the management of various offices”.

He accuses a particular Vatican financial committee consisting of bankers of operating “more for their own interests than for ours”. Archbishop Viganò had every expectation of succeeding Cardinal Giovanni Lajolo to the headship of the Vatican City administration, a post that carried promotion to cardinal. Instead he was appointed nuncio ...

Self-determination has become a key principle of international affairs. So when the leader of the Scottish Nationalists insists on having a referendum on the break-up of the union with England established in 1707, it is taken for granted that the result would determine what actually happens. And this would be true even if the English and Welsh were not similarly consulted, though their interests would also be affected. ...

President Obama has made a serious mistake. He is demanding that Catholic hospitals must make contraceptives available to their staff as part of their health-care packages. The new rules are part of the health-service reforms, which are the greatest achievement of his presidency so far. He appears to have been taken in by the fact that most American Catholics do not have personal moral objections to contraception ...

The eight solicitors who wrote to The Times this week demanding a public inquiry into sexual abuse by members of the clergy may have weakened their case by overstating it. They say they have seen “clear evidence of cover-ups in some of our cases” involving the Catholic Church, which is undoubtedly – and scandalously – true. But they believe these are “the tip of the iceberg”, which ...

Ed Miliband and Mitt Romney could have a mutually sympathetic conversation about the difficulties of political opposition. Labour’s leader is coming under attack from his left – mainly leaders of the large ­public-sector trade union who accuse him of being too New Labour; the Republican front-runner’s main problems come from his right, who find him insufficiently illiberal.

The fact that ...

Britain’s welfare agencies have been both unanimous and vociferous in their opposition to the Government’s Welfare Reform Bill now before Parliament. The Government’s own commissioner for children’s rights, Dr Maggie Atkinson, has listed numerous threats to children’s well-being in the draft legislation, many of which have been echoed by other responsible voices.

Last autumn, ...

A striking contrast exists between the mean-spirited political and media row over immigration which caught fire again this week, and the celebration tomorrow throughout the Catholic Church of the World Day for Migrants and Refugees. The generosity of the latter is summed up by the statement to mark the Day by Bishop Patrick Lynch of Southwark, who leads on immigration issues in the Bishops’ Conference of England ...

Convicting and sentencing two men for the murder of the black teenager Stephen Lawrence in south-east London 18 years ago has stirred conflicting feelings. In part, it is cathartic: at last, some justice has been done. But there is cause for shame at the length of time it took and at the reasons for the delay. Justice still demands that other members of the same gang should also pay the penalty. 

Nevertheless, ...