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Honours System (Reform)

: Indeed. I have made this point, and it is not an eccentric position for a usual suspect. I have an article by Andrew Adonis, who has been a recipient of patronage—am I allowed to say that, Mr. O'Hara? He is now Lord Adonis. He calls for the abolition of name-changing titles:"““The Prime Minister should make no further recommendations of any titles which change people's names and forms of address.””" However, that recommendation just disappeared into a big black hole. We still have the knights and the dames. Within the space of a few years, people would get used to the idea of having an honours system without name-changing titles. When Professor Cannadine gave evidence before us, he said that an honours system without titles would not be unworkable. In our report, he said:"““One hundred years on, if there are no titles in this country nobody will ever imagine what it was like to have had a system where they existed””." Getting rid of titles is no big deal. Other Commonwealth countries have got rid of name-changing titles, and why cannot a radical Labour Government do something like that? But it is not going to happen. The idea was rejected. Another recommendation that we made was for an independent honours commission—rejected out of hand. The Government accepted some of our recommendations. We recommended that citizens who were honoured by the state could wear a little lapel pin. It is good that the Government accepted that recommendation. We talked about categories: first, the people who accept honours, and, secondly, the people who refuse honours. There is actually a third category: the people who accept honours but do not describe themselves according to that honour. The classic example is Simon Jenkins, the celebrated columnist, who does not allude in print to the fact that he is a knight. I want to spend a minute or two on those who refuse honours. This information is in our report. The Channel 4 broadcaster Jon Snow refused an honour. He is against name-changing honours. The Independent columnist Yasmin Alibhai-Brown returned her MBE, and she openly talked about how honours could be secured. It is a fact of life that many people would give their eye teeth for an honour. When the former Prime Minister came before us, he told us that when he was Prime Minister, he was"““shocked at the extent to which . . . people were prepared to lobby for Honours””." That was the former Prime Minister being shocked. There are people who have refused honours, such as the actress Vanessa Redgrave. Albert Finney, David Hockney the artist, Aldous Huxley the celebrated author, James Meade the economist, and Richard Lambert the former editor of the Financial Times, all reportedly refused an honour.