New Year Honours list?
Why?
Fair enough for volunteers who give up their time for unpaid work to help community etc
But awards for doing your job that you are paid for?
Awards for serving the monarchy?
Services to entertainment? Come on to bleep!!
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Why not? adds to the general gaiety of things. Doesn't cost anything, you can ignore them if you don't agree with such things and they are part of our culture and fabric of life and bring pleasure to the recipients.
Don't want to live in a dull and colourless culture and sweep away the most harmless of traditions
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Two different questions;
1) NY Honours list, why?
And there I'd go with CG's response wholeheartedly;
2) Why do some of the people awarded, get those awards?
Now that does seem inappropriate, or at least unearned, at times.
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People are nominated for awards. That's why lollipop ladies, for example, are often included because of exceptional care and attention when looking after children's safety on the roads.
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The theory was you got a gong for years of government service, because you could have earned much more in the private sector. Much less valid now that senior civil servants do quite well for themselves.
Not a reason to abolish the system - part of what make Britain Britain.
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>> Not a reason to abolish the system - part of what make Britain Britain.
>>
There would also be one less thing to moan about.
We don't want that, do we?
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Paddy pants down - made a good companion!
Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown made Companion of Honour.
The honour, which is limited to 65 people in addition to the Queen, is awarded in recognition of services of conspicuous national importance.
Did I miss something ?
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I've just sent my congratulations to a new MBE (and had a reply). The activity it was gained for was a fairly high profile role in a charity, not a paid position at all. Like others though, the use of the honours system to heap 'honours' on political and civil service positions leaves a funny taste in the mouth.
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>> the use of the honours system to heap 'honours' on political and civil service positions leaves a funny taste in the mouth.
It doesn't leave a funny taste in mine. Honours are distributed in large numbers and some of the recipients are bound to seem unworthy to some of the great unwashed. Can't help suspecting that some honours are awarded just to encourage the recipient to retire and stop being a nuisance.
It's always been like that Sp. Surely you must be used to it by now?
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Surely you must be used to it by now?
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Some people can't even if it's pretty harmless and has being going on since the year dot.
'Can't help suspecting that some honours are awarded just to encourage the recipient to retire and stop being a nuisance.'
Of course, that and it keeps them in line. The disgrace should they not get it is enough to keep them towing the line. Different social circles of course to most normal people.
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Surely you must be used to it by now?
Used, yes. Like, no.
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>> Used, yes. Like, no.
I don't think everyone is expected to 'like' the honours lists Wp.
What would you prefer? No honours at all for anyone? Honours only for the harmless and innocent? Honours only for your own favourite candidates?
There are 60 million of us. Nothing is going to make us all happy. Not even the Second Coming will please everyone.
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>>Nothing is going to make us all happy. Not even the Second Coming will please everyone. >>
At my age, even a first one would be welcome!
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>> I don't think everyone is expected to 'like' the honours lists Wp.
Should have put Sp not Wp. Guh.
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In fairness, it's the Civil Service that really ensures that the country manages to survive despite politicians.
Yes Minister! was based on real life experiences, you may recall.
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>> >>
>> Can't help suspecting that some honours are awarded just to encourage the recipient to retire
>> and stop being a nuisance.
>>
>>
The Woolf woman got hers for stepping down before she had even taken up the job.
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>> The Woolf woman got hers for stepping down before she had even taken up the
She got it for being Lady mayor of London. Mrs May's lack of judgement in appointing her to the inquiry is neither here or there.
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>> She got it for being Lady mayor of London. Mrs May's lack of judgement in appointing her to the inquiry is neither here or there.
What with all these Woolf women and judgement-lacking Mrs Mays, along with all the other deadbeats in the honours lists, it's almost beyond belief that the country is still holding up.
What we need is ordinary, modest, semi-literate citizens given all these honours. Then the country would be run properly at last, provided none of those jumped-up ponces stuck their noses in and ruined everything. The last thing the country needs is people who've actually done things and shown a bit of ability getting in the way.
Giving gongs to lucky and able members of the bourgeoisie sets the foreigners a bad example too, and we have to remember our duty to the outside world.
Nothing to be said for it. Just ask Russell Brand.
:o}
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>> The Woolf woman got hers for stepping down before she had even taken up the job.
>>
Leave her alone. She lives near me, so she must be o.k.
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>> so does max clifford....
Not now, he doesn't..........
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>> >> so does max clifford....
>>
>> Not now, he doesn't..........
He'll be back
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>> Paddy pants down - made a good companion!
>>
>> Former Liberal Democrat leader Lord Ashdown made Companion of Honour.
>>
>> The honour, which is limited to 65 people in addition to the Queen, is awarded
>> in recognition of services of conspicuous national importance.
>> Did I miss something ?
>>
His role in former Yugoslavia?
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Armel deserves an honour, for his historiCal (and not always PC) input here!
Mark (RLBS) aka FMR2 (sic) for his input.
Zero and Pat... for being Zero and Pat!
Last edited by: Ian (Cape Town) on Wed 31 Dec 14 at 16:42
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You mean the eternal bickering double act:)
I have left you alone all Christmas, went down with flu on Christmas day and had to abandon the trip to Scarborough. Never had flu before and never, ever want it again.
Re-scheduled the trip to Scarborough for this Saturday but just cancelled that as still feeling very iffy and Ian has come home with the beginnings of it too.
Happy New Year all:) Raise a glass of good red for me please;)
Pat
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Never had true 'flu, but do know that it leaves you without any energy and takes some time from which to recover.
The nearest I've had to it was a chest infection which delivered very similar symptoms and never want to suffer it again. You have my sympathy.
Happy New Year to you and will certainly raise a glass or two of Faustini Number 1 or Aussie c***awarra Shiraz later to express such wishes...:-)
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>> Raise a glass of good red for me please;)
Will vodka or bourbon do Pat?
HNYstopky to you and the other invalid. Keep warm and take painkilling pills but don't get actually ratted, you don't want hangovers as well... see you next year.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Wed 31 Dec 14 at 17:55
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I read that the chap who invented Viagra gets a Knighthood.
"Arise, Sir John Thomas"
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Bit of a pointed remark if I may say.
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Bet he had a stiff one when he got home !
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Geezer yesterday had been recorded saying how pleased and flattered he was by the offer of a gong, and later learned that he wasn't in line for one after all. Not funny at all, cruel actually. Best to keep shtum about anything of that sort given the capricious nature of life and the gong authorities.
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>> Services to entertainment? Come on to bleep!!
BobbyG, I am intrigued by 'Come on to bleep!' The only vulgar emphatic introduced by the word 'to' (that I can think of anyway) is one or other of the variants of a Jamaican menstruation-based oath. But I didn't think you were Jamaican.
Anyway if you spell it right the word passes muster here, because I've used it once or twice.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Thu 1 Jan 15 at 19:06
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As ever of course the publicity focusses on the famous and occasionally controversial recipients.
Among others hounoured were:
Will Butler-Adams. MD of Brompton Bicycles
Gillian Guy C/Ex of Citizen's Advice
Brinsley Forde, Musician and Actor (who remembers him as a kid in Double Deckers?)
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I remember Doubledeckers - rather a nice choccie bar.
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"Among others hounoured were:"
My admiration goes to the volunteers such as Jo Copsey who founded, and organises, Bury Town Pastors. They are a bunch of Christians who help (mostly) youngsters who are the worse for drink on a Saturday night; they are known for defusing tricky situations with diplomacy, kindness and jelly-beans. I once asked a police acquaintance if they 'got in the way' - not at all, he said, they do a great job especially when the presence of a uniformed officer might simply antagonise a volatile situation.
Such people receive no financial reward for their efforts.
As for the professional civil servants, politicians, athletes, entertainers etc who have already received piles of money, pensions, medals and accolades for their efforts ........ I don't give a stuff!
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>> As for the professional civil servants, politicians, athletes, entertainers etc who have already received piles
>> of money, pensions, medals and accolades for their efforts ........ I don't give a stuff!
Agree that there should be no 'automatic' honours and to be fair the number of those is declining though they've yet to disappear. There is though something to be said for awards to those who've made an exceptional contribution and/or succeeded in the most difficult of circumstances.
One of the those awarded the CB, Andrew MacDonald (Service to Parliament and Disability Awareness). Worked briefly for him in 2001 when he was clearing up the mess created by a butterfly careerist previously sent in to sort out a large and struggling organisation. Head and shoulders above the average at his level and got the ship back on course in spite of many experienced and dedicated staff having baled out under previous regime.
His Parliamentary service was to set up and run IPSA, the outfit that pays MPs expenses following the exposure of the scandal. Dealing with a bunch of self important prigs who've had their keys to the trough confiscated is an order of magnitude above running your average govt operation.
The Disability thing, IIRC, follows from his having a profoundly disabled child.
Checking the facts above I found this Guardian article:
www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/19/andrew-mcdonald-parkinsons-cancer-mps-pay
He appears to have both recurrent cancer and a diagnosis of Parkinsons. I'd also forgotten he's three years younger than me.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 2 Jan 15 at 10:39
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Every year there is at least one Award, usually for a 'celebrity' where I think "what on earth have they done to deserve it?". This year it was the actress Kirsten Scott Thomas being made a dame. These actors are only doing their day-job, for which they are very well paid, are they not?
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Awards are bestowed upon recipients by the queen on behalf of the grateful citizens of this country. Thats us.
Half of them we don't even like, let alone feel grateful to. A large proportion of them are awarded to hangers on, social and socialite leeches, smarmy handwringing bow'ers and scrapers, thieves liars and abusers of the generosity of mankind. They are awarded not on the basis of what you have done but who you know or who you have bribed.
They should be scrapped, at once as they are socially and morally corrupt and replaced by a series of awards and honours voted for by the general public.
Last edited by: Zero on Fri 2 Jan 15 at 16:25
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>> They should be scrapped, at once as they are socially and morally corrupt and replaced by a series of awards and honours voted for by the general public.
Really? First result would be that Mr Blobby would get the gong instead of his creator, who is at least a human being.
What's wrong with a bit of social and moral corruption anyway? There's no way of eliminating it, absolutely no way. Human nature you see.
I don't mean I think it's all right of course. But it just is, whether we like it or not.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Fri 2 Jan 15 at 16:44
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>> They are awarded not on
>> the basis of what you have done but who you know or who you have
>> bribed.
You might get that impression from the recipients who get pictured etc in press. Were you to take time to peruse the full list you'd find vast majority of honours are to ordinary people doing the sort of things Haywain's post recites.
See www.gov.uk/government/publications/new-years-honours-list-2015
God preserve us from honours awarded in fashion of an X-factor type vote. Nothing would undermine the whole process more than the effects of professional and social media corrupting the votes; as would inevitably happen.
Any member of the public can nominate another for honours but perhaps the process could be simplified. Last time I saw it, I was occasionally involved in co-ordinating a nomination, it did rather resemble staff reporting or perhaps the more involved sort of reference writing.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 2 Jan 15 at 16:50
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Did anybody notice that Norman Dewis got an OBE?
goo.gl/CBMqVO (Telegraph)
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>Did anybody notice that Norman Dewis got an OBE?
Long overdue. Every Jaguar aficionado will be raising a glass.
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>> They should be scrapped, at once as they are socially and morally corrupt and replaced
>> by a series of awards and honours voted for by the general public.
>>
Not sure if that's serious? I couldn't think of anything worse, at least this way it's easy to ignore if you want. A few crusties on some CS committee, a few nobody MPs and then it's in the media for 24 hours then it's gone, it's easy to ignore if you want, I generally not interested in who gets what. A national vote would be none of those, lots of waffle and hard to avoid. No thanks.
Last edited by: sooty123 on Fri 2 Jan 15 at 16:58
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We already have public nominations. Perhaps they should be the only ones.
The gongs for civil servants (the "entitlement" ones) should be done away with. The idea that civil service mandarins have all sacrificed a career as CEO of a FTSE100 company so deserve a knighthood or whatever is ridiculous, and their gold plated inflation-proof pensions are more than enough compo for their lifetimes of tea drinking and biscuit dunking.
Neither should current sportsperson be knighted unless they have also pulled several people from a burning building.
And why hasn't John Surtees yet been dubbed? He must have upset quite a lot of the wrong people.
www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/sirjohnsurtees
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Short of abolishing the whole system, I think that what we now have is, more or less, the least worst system.
However, I do not think that people like footballers, motor racing drivers, pop people, actors and television personalities should get rewards. They have been, for the most part, very handsomely rewarded both financially and with public adulation.
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All started with Gordon Richards I think: the Queen likes horses and horse racing so probably quite approved. Then Bobby Moore, then the floodgates opened.
In the old days Indian civil service people used to get gongs as a reward for not stealing the funds they administered (although they often had anyway). But the caricature vision of civil servants these days getting gongs merely dunking biscuits and doing the crossword is a bit unfair, anyway in some cases.
My old man got a modest one when he retired, and he had certainly been a hard worker in a number of places. He deserved it, and was pleased with it.
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>> My old man got a modest one when he retired
I can't remember who pinned it on him, Princess Anne perhaps. Not the monarch anyway. I was prevailed on to go to the occasion despite my poor relations with the poor old boy at that time. There's a photo somewhere of the parents and us in front of the palace, taken by some expensive official snapper. I am wearing a whistle and looking saturnine and bad-tempered.
There was a curious scent in the bit of Buckingham palace we were admitted to. I claimed at the time that it was marijuana, but it wasn't really, just some posh cleaning preparation.
There was a garden party afterwards. I tried to get drunk but only partly succeeded.
Last edited by: Armel Coussine on Sat 3 Jan 15 at 17:59
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>> The gongs for civil servants (the "entitlement" ones) should be done away with. The idea
>> that civil service mandarins have all sacrificed a career as CEO of a FTSE100 company
>> so deserve a knighthood or whatever is ridiculous, and their gold plated inflation-proof pensions are
>> more than enough compo for their lifetimes of tea drinking and biscuit dunking.
That justification was only rolled out when voices began to chime up about number of gongs going to Whitehall. That they did so historically is unsurprising given their history of being rewards for service to the Crown.
>> Neither should current sportsperson be knighted unless they have also pulled several people from a
>> burning building.
I disagree. Sportspeople (and actors) who have standout careers eg Wiggins, Hoy, Ennis or going back further Bobby Moore or Gordon Banks are perfectly deserving of recognition. We need to knock the idea that honours are a substitute for money firmly on head.
>> And why hasn't John Surtees yet been dubbed? He must have upset quite a lot
>> of the wrong people.
>>
>> www.petitionbuzz.com/petitions/sirjohnsurtees
Maybe, just maybe, an honour has been offered and refused. It happens. I suspect fact that the previous Parly Ombudsman might have upset a few people would not of itself accounted for her not being a Dame or indeed holding any lesser honour.
Last edited by: Bromptonaut on Fri 2 Jan 15 at 18:03
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Forget Europe, lets have a vote on awards - CGNorwich
