Yet again the usual British Honours Farce. (For non Brits we do this twice a year, the Queen's Official Birthday in June and at New Year).
This time a few popular awards, Sir Bobby Robson and Sir Mick Jagger will please most people but some are controversial, eg another New Labour donor, Gulam Noon gets a Knighthood for £100,000 while the MD of Huntingdon Life Sciences where animals are experimented upon is given a CBE by Blair. Of course there are the usual Civil Servants getting a gong for merely doing their jobs.
In all the whole system is an anachronism and has got worse despite Blair's promise to reform it.
So Jet Blasters, do you have any people YOU would like to give an honour, either fellow Ppruners or individuals whom you feel deserve some recognition for good works and services performed?
It may be a farce to some and some awards are a mite questionable but many are justified. Rewarding people for doing great things quietly and effectively.
For example there are two people I know personally awarded the MBE for their work in founding and running a charity for sick and dying children. I know them both and the thrill and honour they felt sums it all up, especially as it was unexpected and certainly not sought.
Don't most nations have a system of honouring their citizens?
M Mouse. Im NOT against an Honours system but it needs reform.
1 Take away Prime Ministerial and Political patronage. Have a REALLY impartial broad spectrum Honours Commission and have input from ordinary citizens.
2 No more gongs for Civil Servants and high ranking officers for merely doing their job for so many years.
3 Get rid of the Anachronistic "British Empire". We havent had one since the African Colonies got their independence in the 1960s. Perhaps "Order of Great Britain" in its place.
You Poms have got to be joking "Sir" Mick Jagger, what a load of sh*t . Did he get it for services for sex, drugs, rock & roll, fathering illegitemate children and for generally being an ar*ehole.
Whan you think about, it the honours system is no more farcical then placing a crown on someones head and handing them a huge fortune courtesy of the state, just because they were born into a certain family!
Good documentry on about this very subject right now TG. Blatent bribery in my book, there are people out there that would lie in there teeth for a gong and burn their own children alive for a title . This is one of the ways the establishment controls so called independent commitees, public enquires and such, a nudge a wink and a promised gong., dont rock the boat.
Sir Mick Jagger, what a farce and to think there were some on another thread who decried the thought of giving David Beckham a knighthood. Methinks he is more deserving than the oversexed pot smoking drug taking old and ageing rocker. This is the man who tried to have his marriage annulled by trying to prove that the ceremony he went through with Jerry Hall was not valid to avoid his responsabilities. If anyone was not deserving its him.
Honours Farce
Arise Lord Fyne of Prune?
Nepotism?
