![]() Perhaps that could be a useful litmus test for its removal? If you think titles are meaningless, just ignore them. 3) Don’t like them? Don’t use themĬalling someone by their title is not compulsory and in my experience, it’s generally only those undeserving of the award that insist that you use it. Should civil servants and business people, for example, really be awarded the gongs just for doing their jobs? Surely they should be reserved for those who really have gone above and beyond the call of duty, those who have genuinely enriched the nation – and not just financially. The honours should be awarded on merit, not for something incidental to your career or contacts book. Instead, we should be more careful about who we give them too.ĭoes one man really need so many medals? Jamie McCaffrey, CC BYįar too often, though, knighthoods have been handed out as a form of political patronage. By that logic, the Nobel Peace Prize should also be abolished. But the fact that an award has, at some point, been given to an unsuitable person does not justify its total abolishment. One of the chief arguments for getting rid of the Australian system was that a knighthood had been awarded to Prince Philip, a man not short on titles, but arguably short on the merit to justify them all. Certainly, too, there have been occasions where it has proven politically embarrassing – Fred Goodwin, the former RBS boss who presided over the stricken bank in 2008, springs to mind. Why dump them now? 2) A few bad eggs shouldn’t put you offĮven the staunchest defender of the honours system would admit that they have, on occasion, been awarded to the undeserving. Knight and damehoods have been held by people from Winston Churchill and Isaac Newton to Ernest Shackleton and Judi Dench. Honours such as this are part of our common heritage, stretching back hundreds of years. The French system was put in place by Napoleon, and yet still is actively used. The French, for example, have the Legion of Honour. ![]() If we got rid of things purely because they’d been around a long time we’d have removed the monarchy, the state opening of parliament and the Radio Times.Īlmost every country has an honours system of one kind or another. Lots of traditions are archaic, but that isn’t necessarily a good reason to scrap them.
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