Top Hats and Boiler Suits
Matthew Parris wrote an interesting article for The Times newspaper yesterday - in which he poked fun at the British system of awarding public honours.
Here's part of what Parris had to say:
"For a political journalist the acceptance of an honour is a sort of professional vasectomy: only a tweak, but you are not entirely the man you were. You carry on doing whatever you did before but it will never mean the same thing again. You have taken the shilling. A small, key subversive gland has been neutralised.
Not least then among the many good reasons for retaining honours is the system's usefulness as a searchlight. It's interesting to illuminate those of our enfants terribles who have, after all, craved Establishment status: and the best way to find out is to offer it to them.
Philip Larkin's disdain for the OBE turns out to have arisen not from his rage against the epoch, but an ambition (finally fulfilled) to be a Companion of Honour (CBE).
Harold Pinter, David Hare and a whole clutch of people on the Left, including friends of mine, have succumbed. Good luck to them all: but every time a rebel takes a gong a little fairy somewhere dies."
How very well put - and so elegantly as well.
The irony of a former Conservative MP exposing the fondness of people on the Left of politics - desperately craving the approval of the establishment.
Seems to me that these people are really much more conservative - than Matthew Parris himself.
Here's a previous post from the blog site archive on the subject - which made me chuckle to myself on reading it again.
Top Hats and Boiler Suits (August 25th 2009)
Another great story to appear in the press recently concerns William McIlvanney - one of Scotland's most celebrated and talented writers.
McIlvanney revealed that he turned down an OBE in the Queen’s honours list – and went on to compare the honour to "putting a top hat on a man in a boiler suit".
William McIlvanney explained that his decision was private - unlike that of artist and writer John Byrne - the inspiration behind the smash hit series Tutti Frutti - and all the madness involving The Majestics, Eddie Clockerty and Miss Toner.
But John Byrne was making a serious point - when he rejected an MBE for services to art and literature recently - to signify his "absolute disgust" at the Iraq war.
William McIlvanney told the Scotland on Sunday that had written to Downing Street to say he would not be accepting the OBE for "purely personal" reasons.
"It's something that I tried on in my mind, and I found it didn't fit," he explained. "The sleeves were too long, and it just wasn't part of me.”
“It felt like trying to put a top hat on a man in a boiler suit.”
"The idea of rejecting an honour isn't something I've done with any anger, or to demean other people. There are a lot of people who carry out unsung work. I'm only too happy for them to be recognised. "
McIlvanney said: "There have been a lot of honours given for dubious reasons in the past, like providing your wife as the king's bed warmer. The system is riddled with ludicrous elements."
But not everyone takes such a noble stand - there are lots of trade unionists only too glad to accept such honours - as a quick Google search shows:
• Bernard McGill (MBE) – from the north east regional TUC
• Felicity Mendelson (MBE) – from Unison (north east)
• Anne Middleton (MBE) - former deputy regional secretary Unison (Scotland)
• Terri Miller (MBE) – from Unite (south east)
• Matt Smith (OBE) – current regional secretary Unison (Scotland)
• Yvonne Strachan (OBE) - former regional organiser TGWU (Scotland) – now Unite
And that’s the eternal battle within the trade union movement – how to challenge the establishment – while resisting the temptation to become part of the establishment.
Some people do it better than others - you pays your money and takes your choice.
Michael McGahey – a Scottish miner and former leader of the NUM – would never have crossed the road for an MBE or OBE.
So hats off to Mick McGahey, William McIlvanney and John Byrne - so long as it's not Top Hats, of course.
