New Years Honours
mr_goo
Posts: 3,770
Bored and Mrs Goo and daughter watching yet another rerun of QI on Dave.
Quite sure I will be shot down in flames over this, but have been mulling this topic over for last couple of days and note the threads re Wiggos knighthood, and other sports stars recognised during a stellar 2012 for British sport. And just want to get my thoughts off my chest.
Why are sportsmen/women, public servants, entertainers , etc honoured for simply doing their very well paid job? Surely the reward is the Gold Medal, The Yellow Jersey, the big fat pay cheque for serving your country at a senior level, acting, dancing, etc, etc.
Honours should be awarded to citizens who give/gave their services and time, free of charge, willingly, without courting publicity.
David Brailsford got his knighthood for coaching cycling, but he is paid quite nicely thank you very much. There are hundreds if not thousands of sports coaches working at grass roots level of all sports that put in the hours over and above their hectic work and family commitments. A very few are honoured with the lowest honour of MBE. Do they ever get a knighthood? Let me know so you can put me straight on this.
What about the long serving volunteer workers at charities, hospices etc etc? Hardly ever recognised. Never publicised. And please don't mention that abhorrent creature Cherie Blair, she doesn't count.
In my opinion these awards from Her Maj' on behalf of the nation should only go to people that have given something back to the country without receiving any form of recompense.
Quite sure I will be shot down in flames over this, but have been mulling this topic over for last couple of days and note the threads re Wiggos knighthood, and other sports stars recognised during a stellar 2012 for British sport. And just want to get my thoughts off my chest.
Why are sportsmen/women, public servants, entertainers , etc honoured for simply doing their very well paid job? Surely the reward is the Gold Medal, The Yellow Jersey, the big fat pay cheque for serving your country at a senior level, acting, dancing, etc, etc.
Honours should be awarded to citizens who give/gave their services and time, free of charge, willingly, without courting publicity.
David Brailsford got his knighthood for coaching cycling, but he is paid quite nicely thank you very much. There are hundreds if not thousands of sports coaches working at grass roots level of all sports that put in the hours over and above their hectic work and family commitments. A very few are honoured with the lowest honour of MBE. Do they ever get a knighthood? Let me know so you can put me straight on this.
What about the long serving volunteer workers at charities, hospices etc etc? Hardly ever recognised. Never publicised. And please don't mention that abhorrent creature Cherie Blair, she doesn't count.
In my opinion these awards from Her Maj' on behalf of the nation should only go to people that have given something back to the country without receiving any form of recompense.
Always be yourself, unless you can be Aaron Rodgers....Then always be Aaron Rodgers.
0
Comments
-
Good point well made, sadly we don't live in a perfect world. I don't begrudge Brad his nighthood though, he's put himself in a position where he can be successful & has made the most of it. Also, the effect DaveB & Brad have had on cycling on these isles really cannot be ignored. When you get kids riding around racing each other pretending to be Brad & Cav, you know something special has happened!0
-
Mr Goo wrote:Honours should be awarded to citizens who give/gave their services and time, free of charge, willingly, without courting publicity.
Do you look at the actual list of people honoured or just the celebrities that the celebrity oriented press choose to talk about? Who the press talk about is a small subset of those actually honoured. The honours are not about press publicity but, for the most part, people who are exactly those you refer to - the honour is the honour; not the tabloid write ups. The celebrities are just the ones we've heard of so might actually be interested in reading about.
My main objection is that it is another case of instant gratification where public faces are concerned. Maybe it would be better for Brad and Dave to get remembered after their careers are over and they are no longer headline news. But of course that means the politicians missing out on an opportunity to bask in someone elses reflected untainted glory........Faster than a tent.......0 -
The honours system is mired in patronage and cronyism -that's what it is ALL about- and so imagining that it may be used to recognize only merit is idealistic. In a world where the system was fair and egalitarian, well, the system would not exist. It would be good if the hype surrounding the olympics, Wiggins' successes and now his knighthood had some positive effect on everyday cycling in the UK - better infrastructure planning, more recognition from other road users, and seeing the police and the juidiciary act against those who put our lives at risk. Wiggins's incoherent stuttering about helmets after a cyclist was killed at the Olympics suggests he won't be much help. It is odd, of course, that we pour honours on those with great talent who already have enormous advantage. Then again, Hector Sants was knighted. Back to patronage, etc.....0
-
Time was when honours were dished out to those who had earned it but generally at the end of their careers. An exception was Alf Ramsey who had to win the World Cup to get his knighthood, the rest of the team & the coaching staff got nothing until years later when a Mr A Blair decided that the surviving members should be recognised. It was that same chap Blair who felt that Ferguson should be knighted for doing what Bob Paisley had done some years before for no formal recognition, and I may be mistaken but to me that's when dishing out awards to 'popular' figures started to become the norm. Let's not forget Ian Wright was made an MBE around the same time, apparently for services to being the little cheeky token non-white on televised football matches. It's a comparatively recent development, awarding honours to currently active sportsmen - fwiw I don't like it but we are where we are and now that the principle has been established it's easier for the incumbent govt to continue awarding major honours in a populist manner rather than as recognition for what has been a long distinguished but now former career.
It's always worth a read of the full list - most of the broadsheets carry the full list on date of publication. The vast majority are unknowns and senior civil servants. I was struck by how many people in education were honoured this year. Gongs and ribbons are awarded to those who deserve them; a few are handed out prematurely to public figures. Populism rules.0 -
pb21 wrote:Mr Goo wrote:Honours should be awarded to citizens who give/gave their services and time, free of charge, willingly, without courting publicity.
They do.
Yes they get MBEs, but has sports coach that taught children in his spare time for 40 years ever received a knighthood? The lowest rank of honour, which is really just paying lip service to regular citizens.
Wiggo and Brailsford should be honoured once their careers are finished. But a Knighthood? Perhaps a new award should be made for Sporting Excellence or Contribution to British Sport. Same goes for entertainers, though cannot think why any of them should receive an award, unless they raise money for good causes in their spare time. But never for just being paid to act, dance, sing etc.Always be yourself, unless you can be Aaron Rodgers....Then always be Aaron Rodgers.0 -
These awards aren’t solely for how much time and money you put into good/charitable causes. They are awards that, in theory, represent the scale of the achievement from a national perspective. A coach who has taught kids for 40 years has achieved a lot and deserves admiration and respect, but it’s not on the same scale as the world domination that Wiggins and Brailsford have had over the past 8 years or whatever.Mañana0
-
I share the OPs thoughts on this. The armed forces also get awarded honours for doing their (not so well paid) job, but usually for going the extra mile and adding the kind of value that the public just doesn't see. One colleague has an MBE, earned by leading the project team that delivered a certain protected mobility vehicle to Afghanistan both under-budget and well within time constraints: a relative rarity in defence! That the same guy has easily earned an OBE ten times over in his current role is irrelevant as he isn't of sufficient rank to generally be considered for one. Yet we see someone get an OBE just for being on the telly!
The Honours and Awards system is agreat thing for the nation to have,but frankly it is flawed when we see celebrities getting high honours for doing an overpaid job, yet those far more deserving 'unsung heroes' in the likes of the voluntary sector get nought. The whole thing for me was summed up when I saw David Beckham wearing his award at Will and Kate's wedding - on the wrong side of his chest.0 -
There should be no honours system. I'm sure that Doris the Dinnerlady isn't a dinnerlady for 50 years because she wants a gong. Brad didn't win the TdF for a gong. Time to end this silly system.
Military chaps/chapesses should get medals for active service and additional commendations for 'jobs well done'.0 -
Most countries have some kind of awards system in place to make public / state recognition of achievement and service. Ours gets a battering because it's too closely linked to what some like to decry as an outdated constitutional monarchy and the days of empire. That's not a good enough reason to abandon the idea of honouring members of the public.GiantMike wrote:There should be no honours system. I'm sure that Doris the Dinnerlady isn't a dinnerlady for 50 years because she wants a gong. Brad didn't win the TdF for a gong. Time to end this silly system.0 -
CiB wrote:
Most countries have some kind of awards system in place to make public / state recognition of achievement and service. Ours gets a battering because it's too closely linked to what some like to decry as an outdated constitutional monarchy and the days of empire. That's not a good enough reason to abandon the idea of honouring members of the public.GiantMike wrote:There should be no honours system. I'm sure that Doris the Dinnerlady isn't a dinnerlady for 50 years because she wants a gong. Brad didn't win the TdF for a gong. Time to end this silly system.
Doris gets a gong because she serves dinners for 50 years. Dave works as a welder for 10 years, then does a bit of plumbing, then retrains as a BT engineer and works there for 20 years. For 3 years he works at The Doncaster Guardian in their engineering team (of 1). Then, feeling like a change he gets a job in a pet shop until he retires. He notes, with interest, that his old school friend Doris got a gong when he read about it in a newspaper, printed on the old printing presses he used to maintain.
Keith Smarm got a gong, for giving £50k to the Tory Party.0 -
Mr Goo wrote:Wiggo and Brailsford should be honoured once their careers are finished. But a Knighthood? Perhaps a new award should be made for Sporting Excellence or Contribution to British Sport. Same goes for entertainers, though cannot think why any of them should receive an award, unless they raise money for good causes in their spare time. But never for just being paid to act, dance, sing etc.
yeah but I dont think entertainers who raise money for charity are going to get knighted for a long loooong time again yet...
I think the problem is the honours committee were fenced in by the past choices that were made when certainly gongs were flying out the door at a more highly populist rate.
and Brailsford and Wiggo had already collected CBEs (which is the level below knighthoods), based on their past success from Athens & Beijing.
so then your boxed in, as you cant not recognise their achievements for the last year if your handing out handfuls of gongs to various athletes whove won gold medals at the olympics, there would be an element of what on earth do you have to do to get knighted (win 5 gold medals at successive games or 3 in one perhaps ?) as I doubt 2012 will be repeatable for them, and it is a mark of success over a long period of time, rather than a reward for just what they did this year entirely, I think that point is often lost in the media coverage
so it does make sense to a degree, where you can see them trying to balance that back though is with Jessica Ennis & Mo Farah etc "only" getting CBEs because theyd be expected to continue to achieve future success over a longer period (also means theres something to give them when it does), though then Vicky P can probably feel that was slightly harsh on her career achievements having now retired, unless she plans doing lots of charity work or Queens Industry awards (Im guessing doing anything in a coaching role related to cycling is right out) she wont ever be Dame Vicky
its not a perfect system because no two instances are alike0 -
I love to read justifications for the unjustifiable. Trying to make sense of this is like trying to dance about architecture. It's an idiotic system born out of a class riddled empire, an anachronism and a symptom of a system which is anything but egalitarian.0
-
pliptrot wrote:I love to read justifications for the unjustifiable. Trying to make sense of this is like trying to dance about architecture. It's an idiotic system born out of a class riddled empire, an anachronism and a symptom of a system which is anything but egalitarian.
It will help you make sense of it if you accept the basic fact that the vast majority of honours are awarded to otherwise normal folk who do go the extra mile to make the difference. If you can't see that (and all you need to do to prove it is actually look at the list) you're hardly going to see it as anything else but unjustifiable.
Try ignoring the justifcations on either side and concentrate on the plain facts (as not generally recorded in the tabloid press or TV channels).Faster than a tent.......0
