Memorandum by Mr Peter Duffy (HON 43)
1. HONOURS SHOULD
BE FOR
"PEOPLE WHO
MAKE A
DIFFERENCE"
Granting honours to Whitehall mandarins and
company directors is simply cronyism, and I think is unfair. A
person the people who, say, pull a drowning child from a river,
or contributes to the public good in general, should be the most
eligible.
A parallel could be a public procurement system,
whereby submissions are judged against clearly objective criteria,
and the entire judging process is transparent.
2. IT SHOULD
BE LESS
IMPERIALIST
Modern UK is a multicultural society, and members
of the former colonies might have mixed feelings about an award
that in many ways is a vestige of imperialism. Rename the awards.
For example few Indians, Irish, or Jamaicans would thank you for
naming them a "Companion of the British Empire".
February 2004
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