Let them have their worthless honours baubles

Sam Leith

HERE’S a good deal of hemhemming going on over the leak of nominees for David Cameron’s resignation honours list. Shock! Prominent Remain campaigners and party donors — such as Ian Taylor and Andrew Cook, who’ve each bunged the Tories north of a million quid — are up for knighthoods! Horror! Four Cabinet ministers who campaigned against Brexit are headed the same way!

You know what? I think that’s fine. Good, in fact. There is a long tradition suggesting that this is what the honours system is actually for. Why shouldn’t party donors and loyal political footsoldiers get a knighthood or two? The “honours for sale” scandal ignores the essential, glorious fact that honours are intrinsically worthless. A mere escutcheon, as Falstaff would put it. They pay a million quid; you give them a fancy name.

There’s a case — not at all a bad one — for political parties to be publicly funded in a modest way. But that case is not, in general, being seriously made. None of the main parties fancies it, and even well-wishers will be able to imagine the legal wrangling, the workarounds, the nightmarish negotiation that would involve.

So, living in the world we’re living in — where politicians are, like Blanche in A Streetcar Named Desire, dependant on the kindness of strangers — what is the least bad way to reward them? The honours system looks, to me, like it.

I mean, put it this way: would you rather a billionaire wrote a cheque to a politician and got a favourable tweak to legislation in consequence, or that a billionaire wrote a cheque to a politician and got three letters before or after his name in consequence?

The honours system is essentially free, means nothing much, and — as the continued existence of Sir Philip Green underlines — is moving in the direction of being actively satirical.

When I was at my posh public school (I went — groan, sigh etc — to Eton) I marvelled at the efficiency with which potenti al troublemakers were co - opted. All the coolest and most popular boys were elected to a prefect body called “Pop” (standing for “popular”). They all longed for this distinction because it allowed them to wear grey rather than black trousers, and coloured waistcoats. In exchange for being allowed to peacock thus, they would spend hours on a Saturday night standing on Windsor Bridge in the rain to apprehend younger boys sneaking to the pub. They regarded tedious dut i e s a s a pr iv i l e ge be c au s e t he authorities had pandered to their vanity, the big idiots.

So it is with honours. Peerages, which give you a seat in the legislature, are another issue. But knighthoods, CBEs, MBEs, KCMGs and all the rest of it — here are harmless baubles that flatter donors at no cost to the public purse and at no cost to the integrity of our law-makers. What’s more, they tend to act as red flags, happily identifying the vain and silly and their relationship with their political patrons. Coloured waistcoats. Bought and sold. That’s transparency, of a sort. If legislative favours are also on offer, it’s going to be that much more obvious to those of us sitting in the peanut gallery.

If the choice is between selling influence and selling flatter y, in other words, I’m for the latter.