Is there any institution, convention, tradition – up to and
including the monarchy – that Boris Johnson will not disrupt, traduce, usurp?
We know the answer to that from the unlawful prorogation of Parliament
and the lying to the Queen to achieve that end - albeit temporarily. Yet still, he has this capacity
to amaze with his audacity. The latest example being the “Prime Minister’s
Honours” published last weekend.
Forget for a moment the controversy over the recipients of
his largesse, the ennobling of a marathon-walking cricketer merely for his
utterances in support of Brexit. Cronyism and the repayment of personal and
political debts have always been part of this game; think Harold Wilson and
Marcia Falkender’s Lavender List; think the Cameron resignation honours. 'Twas
ever thus.
Inequality and entitlement have also always been part of the
game. For those in the right occupations, honours are part of the career
progression, starting with the OBE and culminating in a K for the time-serving civil servant who makes
permanent secretary or a damehood for the actress who has worn enough Sunday
night bustles and lorgnettes.
But honours are supposed to be more than an expected perk of
the job or a headline grabber; they are there to recognise ordinary people in
all walks of life, from the lollipop lady and sub-postmaster to the small-time
entrepreneurs who turn a kitchen table hobby into a viable business. The people who make our country tick.
These are the people who have been done down by Johnson’s
latest caprice. People who should already have been recognised, most likely by
being appointed an MBE – the lowest rung on the honours ladder – but who have had
to wait while his Press chums and party donors troop into the Lords.
Every June, we officially celebrate the anniversary of the
coronation with the Trooping the Colour, a spectacular flypast and the Queen’s
Birthday Honours. This year, thanks to covid, the Colour was trooped quietly in
Windsor and the flypast was limited. The honours were absent.
The Prime Minister had announced in May that the list would
not be published until the autumn to ensure, he said, that it reflected the
covid-19 effort and came
“at a time when we can properly celebrate the achievements of all those
included”.
The decision was reported briefly, without question or
challenge. Was it reasonable? Almost certainly, if it was going to deflect
Whitehall staffers from more pressing matters. But that was not the case. Mr
Johnson acknowledged in his statement that the list had been agreed before the
pandemic struck.
Wouldn’t it have been strange to have a list that didn’t recognise
covid “heroes”? Well, not really. People would understand that the list had
been prepared before they had done their bit and that their time for
recognition would come later – as happens in every Olympic year when our summer
medallists are honoured in midwinter.
Indeed, if the Prime Minister wished, he could produce a
special coronavirus honours list at any time he chose – as happened after the
Falklands conflict and the Gulf wars.
Would it not seem tone deaf to be knighting ageing rock stars at a time when hundreds of people were still dying every day? Possibly. But the death rate was falling, garden centres and other businesses were to reopen the weekend after he made the announcement; the anti-lockdown lobby was becoming ever more vociferous in its clamour for a return to normality. In the cautiously optimistic mood he was seeking to promote, postponing the honours was counter-narrative.
If he had to say anything at all about them, this was an
ideal opportunity – the very day after the Queen dubbed Captain Tom in a
special one-off ceremony – for Johnson to send a “keep calm and carry on” message
while explaining that the covid effort would be properly recognised once the
virus had been well and truly beaten.
There would have been positives in it. After all, the
honours posed no risk of spreading the virus, but they might have spread some
good cheer, even if investitures had to be deferred.
Instead he broke the link between the Queen’s official
birthday and the honouring of her subjects, betraying – knowingly or otherwise
– a level of contempt for them both. He may have thought he was doing the right
thing, but if “circumstances” lead you to treat a fixed event in the national
calendar as a movable feast when you don’t absolutely have to, it will be
easier to move it again when it suits your purposes in the future. That is how
traditions are destroyed, institutions brought down.
As with his request to use the Buckingham Palace tennis
court and gardens in preference to more conventional facilities, Johnson
doesn’t seem to understand that there are some “royal” areas on which it is
unwise for a Prime Minister to tread. It smacks of entitlement and looks
disrespectful.
Meanwhile, the public health emergency did not stop him
thanking his Brexit friends and sending a further 36 people into an overcrowded
House of Lords. Will they be “working” peers? Will Beefy actually turn up and
do a bit of legislating? Do we want him to? Hammond probably will, but has Ken
had enough?
These were officially the dissolution honours – albeit seven
months late – but only the Telegraph described
them as such. The Times, beneficiary
of a leak two weeks in advance of publication, said that Johnson was “marking
his anniversary as leader”; the BBC called it “the Prime Minister’s honours”.
And everyone just took it as normal. There were raised eyebrows over some of
the people he was elevating, but no questions or explanations of Johnson’s
power to dole out baubles – or not, as with the Birthday Honours – whenever he
fancies.
We’d seen that before, straight after the election, when he
sent Zac Goldsmith, twice rejected by the electorate, to the Lords, along with
Nicky Morgan, who hadn’t risked standing for the Commons. That prompted
accusations that he was using the Lords as “a job centre for his friends”.
And now family, too. The shameless nepotism and cronyism of
the latest list, including – just a week after the Russia report – the son of a
Russian spy, again demonstrates how Johnson and his cohort are confident that
they can do whatever they like, to hell with any backlash. As one tweeter
remarked: “They’re gaslighting the whole nation now.”
There are, we are told, “more to come” in the autumn,
presumably under cover of the covid heroes. Will Baron Farage sneak under the
radar while the PM points to Sir Radiologist?
And how will the coronavirus effort be reflected? Will the
class system again hold sway with knighthoods and CBEs for the doctors and
specialists, while 14-hour-shift nurses are palmed off with the MBE? Who can
possibly say which paramedic’s efforts were greater than another’s? Will
porters, cleaners, ambulancemen, binmen, schoolteachers, carers be recognised?
We can only hope.
I’d like to see damehoods and knighthoods for the care home
owners who resisted pressure to take untested hospital patients and instigated
their own procedures to keep residents safe long before Hancock came up with
his imaginary “protective ring”. But that’s not going to happen. You don’t get
rewarded for defying this Government.
No doubt Chris Whitty will get his knighthood, Vallance
might be sent to the Lords. We can be pretty sure that, as ever, the highest
honours will go to the closest “friends”.
But at least Mrs Lollipop Lady will, at last, be able to
celebrate her MBE “properly”.
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