The ridiculous British honours system is in the news again this week due to a ladies underwear designer ‘getting his knickers in a twist’ over being awarded an MBE.

Joseph Corre has rejected his ‘gong’ on the grounds that he had…   “been chosen by an organisation headed by a Prime Minister who I find morally corrupt”.

Well good for him, for now he joins the likes of actors Albert Finney, Vanessa Redgrave, Kenneth Branagh, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Honor Blackman, the writer Michael Frayn, , the singer David Bowie, the composer Benjamin Britten and the artist L. S. Lowry who turned down the lot … knighthood … OBE and CBE.

In 1969, John Lennon returned his MBE in protest over a number of things including the Vietnam war, and in 2003, the poet Benjamin Zephaniah publicly rejected an OBE from ‘er Maj’ to protest against the war in Iraq and other British policies. 

According to press reports this week, the author Salman Rushdie was given his knighthood … ‘by public demand’ … What public ? … I doubt if many of the public have ever picked up one of his books, and if they had I’m bloody sure that they never finished it.

A few years ago the writer J. G. Ballard rejected the chance to become a CBE, and said at the time that he opposed the “preposterous charade” of the honours system … Blimey! he should see it now.

Tony Blair, who loves to hand out honours to overpaid sports ‘heroes’, dodgy businessmen and ancient pop singers, announced this week that another group of people were to be ‘honoured’…  The Bevin Boys …  the 50,000 or so young men who were conscripted to work in the coal mines during the latter stages of the Second World War.

They were named after Labour MP Ernie Bevin, Minister for Labour and National Service, and suffered more hardship and were in greater danger than many of their fellow conscripts who were in the armed forces; but unlike their comrades in uniform they did not qualify for any medals at the end of the war.

So what is our Tone going to give the surviving few thousand after more than sixty years ? … A small lapel pin !

My father, although a civilian, was belatedly awarded The Defence Medal for his service in the Fire Guard during the years that London was under attack from the Luftwaffe, and it is said that …

“… it was not unusual to find a man with several stars (campaign medals) who had never heard a shot fired in anger. Conversely, a man with only the Defence Medal who earned it, for example, whilst serving in the fire or rescue services in London or any other city subject to constant air attack, wears a medal worth having …. only the man who wears the medal knows how it was earned“.

I certainly think that those young miners ‘earned’ more than …

…      a bloody little badge !