Originally Posted by
langleybaston
"Yes but"
There have always been allocations. My recommendation to MBE for a marvellous twilight years effort by an under-promoted and over-performing Met. man got a tick in every box as it went up the chain ....... I was told that it was successful: and then came the Falklands in the same year.
Result:: the MBE went to a Met man actively engaged in supporting the task force, and I was told it was all about quotas and rationing. "We cannot have two".
I always refused thereafter to put anyone up.
There is much to like about the principle of honours, and much to dislike about the application.
To declare an interest, the man who filled my pencilled-in post before me got an OBE. The man who actually succeeded him likewise. Meanwhile, having slithered away towards the sharp end, I had six years at the top of my career, and no OBE. No contest! Result!
Yet Michael Fish got an MBE and missed a Hurricane (Use of wrong word, very strong cyclonic depression)
