careless features of the honours list
Has some sort of policy developed which ends the award of AFC with the New Year and Birthday honours ? In days gone by the AFC would have been the obvious award for someone like Sqn Ldr Andy Edgell.
MPN11 remarked on the John Major policy to “democratise” the honours. I would have thought the reduction in the flow of honours to the armed forces’ VSOs reflects their loss of status in the Whitehall battlefield rather than the shrinkage in the defence demographic.
While Major brought in new gallantry medals, he abolished the BEM presumably because in some muddled way he disapproved of the rank system. It must please some of the posters here that their notional SAC bog-cleaner can only get an MBE, so making parity for him with several star Squadron Leaders and an acting Captain RNR on this list. The mistake of abolishing the BEM was quickly rectified in the civil list. Now the anomaly is that SAC Boggs might well get an MBE while Mrs Mopp most certainly will not. Unintended consequences or what? I noted, in an early honours list after the BEM was restored, that a retired Major in Wiltshire was awarded one. What did he think and why did they bother ?
As one who would wish to take the honours system seriously, I have been distracted by the clerical sloppiness of the published lists, even before the clanger dropped in the Cabinet Office this time. The quasi-citations for the NY 2020 headline recipients are to my eye gushing and undignified.