Memorandum by the Orders & Medals
Research Society (HON 85)
Though I feel that writing letters to MPs is
rather on a par with voting—if it made any difference, they
would have banned it—the complete and total horlicks made
of the 2003 Queen's Golden Jubilee Medal prompts me to make a
few points which your committee may like to consider in relation
to honours. They are in no special order but arise from many years
familiarity with the system.
Something really needs to be done about what
Harold Wilson called the "stardust" factor in the bi-annual
honours lists as these often cause so much more resentment than
knighthoods to businessmen which, after all, they frequently pay
for. The main achievement of many actors, jockeys, footballers
and pop musicians who appear in the lists is restricted in many
people's eyes to the building of personal fortunes and this sits
very ill with the recognition of voluntary work over many years
by the granting of the same or an inferior award.
To give example, a connection of mine was recently
honoured with the MBE for unpaid voluntary service as a school
governor and chair of governing bodies for something like 40 years.
The same recognition was given to the entire English rugby team
for winning a match.
I believe that rewards for what might loosely
be termed "culture", ie theatre, sport, entertainment,
should be separated out and made the subject of a new order and
that the Order of the British Empire should be used to reward
service to the community in all its aspects. This new Order of
Cultural Merit would need but 3 classes to encompass sufficient
breadth of reward, say, Member, Companion or Commander and Knight/Dame
if it is decided to retain this grade in all orders.
In fact, the Napoleonic concept of a five class
order has been unnecessary in this country since institution as
there is no possible need for two classes of knighthood, and few
appreciate the difference between KBE and GBE or KCMG and GCMG.
It's like having knight 1st class and knight 2nd class.
In regard to existing orders, far wider currency
needs to be given to both the Bath and Michael and George. The
first has become restricted to Rear Admirals on retirement and
civil servants and the second is entirely the property of the
diplomatic service. There is no possible justification for this.
The Bath could be widened out to reward, as it used to, public
servants of all kinds like Chief Constables, Firemasters, chief
officers of local authorities and the like. The Michael and George
used to be given in the armed forces—there is no reason
why it could not be again.
Under Major's "reforms" the ISO was
scrapped but the ISM was not. Logical ?
A very worrying recent tendency has been the
downgrading of KBE. Very few are now awarded outside the armed
forces and knighthoods are now almost exclusively achieved through
the medium of Knight Bachelor. viz the last few honours lists.
DBE, of course, still features as there is no female equivalent
of knight bachelor.
The award of both MBE and OBE need to be extended.
When Major ceased to recommend for the British Empire Medal, he
promised that those who would previously have been given a BEM
would receive a MBE but this does not appear to have happened
to any great extent. Certainly, there are school-crossing ladies
now getting MBEs but the numbers awarded do not seem to have expanded
enough to take in the number of former BEMs. Nor does any adjustment
appear to have taken place on the borders of MBE/OBE and the same
social boundaries appear to be in place.
The Order of the British Empire. Of course there
are those who will refuse this order as being anachronistic but
everyone knows what it is and no-one is pretending that the British
Empire still exists. There is widespread opinion among those who
are familiar with this order that "it ain't broke" and
any attempt at fixing it is only going to give rise to risible
alternatives. The Orders of Australia and Canada were new inventions
which were obvious alternatives to British Empire, but an Order
of Britain ? MOB, OOB and COB ? Leave it alone.
The above random thoughts may or may not be
of interest to your committee. Like many members of my Society,
I have had an interest in the honours system for a long period
and, in all the discussions I have had over that time, the one
purpose of the system which can be agreed by all is to reward
merit. It is when the system is used to reward political support,
particularly donations, or to honour media or sports personalities
in the mistaken belief that their popularity among Daily Mail
readers will somehow rub off that the system is brought into disrepute
by those who run it. We need to define merit more closely and
to keep the lists firmly away from the sticky hands of the political
advisers even though it is the Prime Minister's List. Perhaps
there should be two lists: the merit one and the Prime Minister's
where he can put all his stardust and paybacks. Or is that being
too cynical.
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