Too many Tories win our grandest honour

THE Order of the Companions of Honour is one of our grandest awards. In the gift of the Monarch, it is awarded only for nationally important service, under the motto ‘In action faithful and in honour clear’.

Last weekend, three more people were given this honour, including 85year-old historian Antonia Fraser and broadcaster-novelist Melvyn Bragg.

However, if you look at the list of names of previous recipients, you will notice that it is top-heavy with Conservative politicians. Indeed, out of the 65 members of the Order, which was established in 1917 by George V, 16 are Tories, including ninth-raters such as the embittered former Chancellor George Osborne.

By contrast, there is only one Labour politician — Baroness Valerie Amos.

She, too, is not of the first rank — a little-known former leader of the House of Lords who later became the UN’s Undersecretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Co-ordinator.

This imbalance between Labour and Tory is disgraceful. There have been plenty of Labour politicians who have given superb service in recent decades.

One thinks of Alan Johnson, Margaret Beckett, Tessa Jowell, Alistair Darling, Gordon Brown and many other decent people.

Whether or not you agree with their politics, they have given their country stout service.

Whoever chooses the membership of this order of chivalry has slipped up badly.