The Gray Monk

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December 07, 2003

Honouring achievement

I guess you know when a system has been abused. It stops functioning effectively and becomes a source of contention. For almost a Century now, the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (It was set up in the closing days of Empire in the early years of the 20th Century) has been a means of honouring ordinary people who have contributed to their communities or to the nation that little bit more than was expected of them in the ordinary course of events. On the whole it has worked well. The great and the good got the important gongs and the titles handed out in the Honours Lists, the "little" people such as Postmistresses, Firefighters, charity workers, community workers and so on, got a MBE or, if they were really lucky, an OBE.

Then came this rotten to the core bunch of media obsessed Blairites. Now what do we get? Alongside those who really do deserve recognition we get the "luvvies" from the theatre and cinema, we get so-called "poets", we get party hacks and more civil servants who've never contributed a d**ned thing to society all lining up to be decorated - or to get a load of free publicity by pre-empting the awards with rude, and downright disgraceful public refusals of an award.

The latest is an ex-jailbird and drug user who refuses to accept an award of Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE) - because of the rape of his "foremothers" by said Empire. What complete and utter garbage. Who the h*ll put his name forward anyway? More important - WHY? For a Fire Officer to get an OBE would require him or her to have reached the rank of Chief Fire Officer, probably in a large metropolitan Brigade, to have put in a vast amount of time and effort on rafts of committees arguing for improvement and change in a whole range of areas. They would have had to keep all the politicians sweet on the one hand and the troops on board on the other, have dedicated a huge amount of effort to charitable work and promotion of community involvement at their local and at national level. They would probably have been awarded some other minor gong before this and then; if a committee of civil servants working to the Cabinet Office, allocated him or her sufficient merit points on their secret scale, they MIGHT have been put in the list to get the OBE.

What the h*ll did this incoherent clown do to get into even being considered for this award?

Of course, his objection has now triggered a flood of half witted sympathisers sending their MBE's and OBE's back. Oh, and a demand that the Order be renamed. Well, why not. At present rate of descent, the Order of the Undeserving Twit will be about right - Blair has presided over enough totally undeserved Honours to his cronies to have devalued it completely. Perhaps Her Majesty could graciously create a special one for all Tony's cronies, so that those who deserve the honour can feel proud to have accepted it again. Then he can do as he d**ned well pleases without offending all those who have earned a mark of recognition and would like to be recognised by the award of MBE, OBE or even CBE.

All power at least to Helen Mirren, who graciously accepted an award of Dame of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire - the ladies equivalent of a Knighthood. She, at least, has enriched our lives by fine acting and a huge amount of work done for charities over her career.

My great aunt, who at 22 took a group of St John Ambulance Nurses to Flanders in 1916 entirely on her own initiative from Northern Ireland, had to wait a long time for an honour. She and her volunteers set up a field dressing station in the zone immediately behind the front and worked for several months without pay, just on the charity of the people at home and the French villagers, before, finally, the army recognised how much use they were being and formally adopted them. She went on from there to run a small post office and to do a tremendous amount of work for the families of the Royal Irish Rifles (her father's former regiment - now wiped from history by Blair's poodles of PC and appeasement!) who had been left in hardship by the death in action of fathers, brothers and uncles. Widowed herself, she received an OBE in 1953 in recognition of her work. The award made almost 40 years after the events!

Blair and his coterie have dishonoured women and men like her whose contribution to this country and the world was recognised, not in wealth or fame, but in the quiet award of the Order in one of its grades.

I ask again - what did this so-called poet do to earn such an award?

Posted by The Gray Monk at December 7, 2003 04:40 PM

Comments

Posted by: Ozguru at December 8, 2003 01:35 AM

Posted by: The Gray Monk at December 8, 2003 10:57 PM