21st June 2002

Twice a year the Queen's Honours list is published and we are told which rich and famous people are to be made Lords with a seat for life in Parliament and who are to be come Sir John this or Dame Jane that, in recognition of their supposedly valuable contribution to the nation and, to make it all sound a bit more democratic, there are hundreds and other names on the list, including some brave postmistress who has fought off a gang who attacked her and a traffic warden who has served faithfully for forty seven years.

Apart from a very few who may get a peerage for marrying a member of the Royal Family or for performing some act of personal service to the sovereign, which are the personal gift of the Queen, all the names in the list are drawn up by the prime minister or ministers with the help of civil servants, but since the Queen, by law, is the Fount of all Honour her name goes at the top of the official announcement and some of the top awards are handed out by her at an investiture in Buckingham Palace.

It is obvious that all prime ministers will want to reward their political friends and supporters, attempt to win more friends from amongst those who may not have been so helpful but could possibly be induced to take a more positive view if they get recognized and to please the Tabloids some famous pop star or footballer will be included, showing how closely the Queen and No 10 Downing Street are in touch with public feeling.

When Lloyd George was prime minister he actually sold honours for cash and used the money for his personal political fundraising, but corruption and honours had always gone hand in hand from the very beginning and there are those who believe that the two are virtually indivisible by the very nature of the patronage process.

The less glamorous honours are put to ministers to approve by civil servants in their own departments and will normally go through on the nod, but even at the lower level the patronage system still works and I recall one permanent secretary who had recommended a knighthood for a particular industrialist, being given a directorship in that man's company, when he himself retired from the civil service a year or two later.

But apart from the sniff of traditional sleaze, which has always surrounded the system, what is wrong with it is that all honours come from the top and none have any democratic legitimacy about them and the awards given relate to the social class of the recipient and not the service that has been rendered.

The top brass in Whitehall and the City are the ones who get the peerages and the knighthood's and our sub-postmistress may get a medal at the lowest level and will not be asked to an investiture to receive it, but if she can be persuaded that it really is the Queen's personal wish that she should have it then she may become a passionate supporter of the monarchy, the class system and the status quo - which is what the Jubilee was all about.

Contrast this way of saying thank you with the more democratic procedures that do exist, as when a University votes to award some distinguished scientist an honorary degree, or a city which votes to make a citizen a Freeman of the Borough, both of which carry with them the authority of a collective decision without any fount of honour having gushed upon them.

It is the same when a trade union gives someone life membership after that member has devoted him, or herself, to work of that union, or even honours some person outside who is believed to have made a genuine contribution to their work.

It would be perfectly possible - and extremely desirable - for the House of Commons to take over the honours system from the prime minister by inviting nominations from MPs, Local authorities and other public bodies, which together with the citations would be published in a motion of thanks which could be formally debated and passed, followed by a reception for those named all of whom would be given their own citation, suitably framed and a single medal struck to mark their award.

In this way the whole system would be democratic, freed from all personal patronage and genuinely open at every stage to allow those who really have performed a service to feel that they had been recognized, encouraging all the people who do a good job, especially in the public services where financial rewards are well below those in private industry.

Encouragement is a much more effective way of getting results than the practice of naming and shaming adopted by OFSTED in their dealing with schools that were struggling against difficult circumstances to help the students in their care, and the passion for grading everyone and publishing league tables has had a similarly depressing impact, just as the eleven plus examinations did before comprehensives came in to end the classification of children as failures at the beginning of life.

It has long seemed to me that there are those who positively dislike the idea that working class children should get a better education because it might lead to them asking awkward questions about the society in which they live and it would be better if they were just trained to take orders and know their place in society so that the class system can continue unchallenged.

That is also what the present Honours list is all about and, speaking for myself I would far rather be an honorary member of the NUM as I am - membership number 001 - than be in the House of Lords, and I don't have to prove it.