Odd business, the honours system. In some fields, it seems that who gets offered an honour, and when, is not far from random: Cliff and Elton before Paul; Mick at all. Mike Brearley not a knight, still? Then there are the laggards: Cyril Washbrook getting a CBE in his 70s when almost everyone else had forgotten him except for the new Prime Minister of the time whose presumed intervention on Washbrook’s behalf is one of many reasons why I admire him more than anyone else I know does. And then there are the fields where you are bound to be offered something by a certain age unless you have done something very odd. Lead a party, get a peerage. Almost all significant cabinet ministers seem to be offered them eventually, so of those who don’t have them you pretty much know they have turned them down (Michael Foot has, apparently, turned everything down; Ted Heath must have turned down a peerage, though accepted other things). I presume that no-one has had a sufficiently surreal sense of humour to offer Tony Benn anything, but I also presume that’s the only reason he hasn’t been offered anything (or, maybe I’m wrong, and he has). I was told the other day that Nigella Lawson turned something down, which I find very surprising. But what could have been offered to her and why?
Anyway, no doubt the honours system is outdated, somewhat corrupt and faintly ludicrous. I just hope that its mostly harmless. Congratulations, Dad. Thank goodness they’re not hereditary.
(Explanation of title here. Key quote: ‘Professor Brighouse, a Labour Party supporter, used money he won in a libel action against John Patten, a former Conservative education secretary, for one of his most innovative reforms – setting up a University of the First Age at Aston University so youngsters from deprived backgrounds could get a taste of university life and seize the chance to go on to higher education. Mr Patten had described Professor Brighouse as a “nutter” who roamed the streets frightening little children.‘)
{ 56 comments }
Ginger Yellow 12.31.08 at 1:01 am
I had thought people like Benn who disclaimed hereditary peerages couldn’t be made life peers, but Wikipedia says they can. So it must be true.
Joel Turnipseed 12.31.08 at 1:11 am
Doesn’t this mean we’re now supposed to call you “The Honorable Harry Brighouse?” You are, of course–but it goes without saying.
I also wonder: do they have Peerage trading cards in the U.K., rather like my mother-in-law’s Catholic Saints trading cards?
john b 12.31.08 at 1:27 am
I can think of things that I might be willing to offer to Ms Lawson that she might decide to turn down. Disappointingly.
(alternative title to the original piece: “you frighten little children and you always wonder why”)
Jim A. 12.31.08 at 1:54 am
The story about the libel suit is intriguing. There is no way that such a judgment could occur under US libel law. Do you/readers of this blog think that the British doctrine of libel is better or worse than the US, and why?
P O'Neill 12.31.08 at 1:59 am
Can we have gotten this far without mentioning Robert Plant, CBE?
Bob B 12.31.08 at 2:14 am
“Mr Patten had described Professor Brighouse as a ‘nutter’ who roamed the streets frightening little children”
For obscure reasons, leading Conservatives on the hoof are often stressed to find sensible, mature vocabulary and phrases to express their political rhetoric.
In various places, I’ve been a regular critic of Gordon Brown’s economic policies – which, given the manifestations, isn’t exactly a cerebrally challenging undertaking.
Now I’m reading that David Cameron – current leader of British Conservatives – has likened Gordon Brown to the German Luftwaffe during the blitz in WW2.
David Cameron was born 21 years after WW2 ended. I can’t believe that I’m the only one who finds Cameron’s rhetoric like that of a rather silly sixth form debater with articulation problems.
lindsey 12.31.08 at 2:29 am
That’s fantastic. It is a shame that it’s not hereditary. Wouldn’t that be a funny way to introduce yourself to students?
Matt 12.31.08 at 2:59 am
I knew that the UK had bad libel laws, but I would have thought that even there truth would be a defense! (I kid! I kid!)
lemuel pitkin 12.31.08 at 3:47 am
Eric Hobsbawm said he only accepted a title to please his mother. Perhaps Harry Sr. can give an analogous excuse.
josh 12.31.08 at 4:52 am
“Eric Hobsbawm said he only accepted a title to please his mother. ”
I don’t think this can be true, as Hobsbawm was orphaned in his teens. It was true of Isaiah Berlin, which gave rise to the following story: Berlin encountered the newly-Sir Lewis Namier on the street in Oxford; Namier, seeing Berlin, proudly prepared to be congratulated on his recent ennoblement. Instead, to his consternation, he found himself being taken to task” “Namier — how could you, coming from where you have, being who you are, agree to be knighted? Don’t you realise how false a position this is?” Namier was astonished, and stammered out that Berlin was one to talk, since he, too, had accepted a knighthood. “Ah, yes, but that’s an entirely different case — entirely different. You see, my mother is still alive.”
Whether or not this is true (and it does sound unusually blunt for Berlin), it was the case that when offered a peerage Berlin turned it down — his mother having died in the interim.
Russell Arben Fox 12.31.08 at 5:40 am
Many congratulations to your father, Harry; whatever the provenance of the honor, it’s always nice to see the right sort of people recognized for the right sort of things.
lemuel pitkin 12.31.08 at 5:56 am
“Eric Hobsbawm said he only accepted a title to please his mother. â€
I don’t think this can be true, as Hobsbawm was orphaned in his teens.
I was recalling this from Perry Anderson’s essay on Hobsbawm. But I see now that what Anderson actually says is that Hobsbawm accepted various honors “because nothing would have given such happiness to his mother,” with an explicit nod to Berlin.
bad Jim 12.31.08 at 6:09 am
Attributed to Shackleton: “A life peer is like a mule — no pride of ancestry, no hope of posterity.”
Mrs Tilton 12.31.08 at 9:23 am
Ginge @1,
I had thought people like Benn who disclaimed hereditary peerages couldn’t be made life peers
Indeed that is exactly what was done with Alec Douglas Home, one of the first peers to disclaim under the Act Benn had agitated for (though one suspects his motivation for doing so might have been somewhat different to Benn’s).
Tracy W 12.31.08 at 9:57 am
Terry Pratchett got a knighthood, so the British Government isn’t doing too badly this year.
Matt Heath 12.31.08 at 11:11 am
One of the best embarrassed explanations for accepting an honour was John Peel who considered refusing the OBE but decided there was a risk he would turn into someone who went around telling everyone that he refused the OBE.
I understand why people say Mick Jagger shouldn’t have accepted a knighthood, but compared to a lot of the actors that have them, why didn’t he deserve to be offered it?
Jacob Christensen 12.31.08 at 11:22 am
@ P. o’Neill: And let us not forget Jimmy Page, OBE!
By the way, back in 1791 the Danish author P.A. Heiberg wrote the famous (well, at least in Denmark) line “Orders you hang on idiots.” (Apparently, the Danish King was present when the poem containing the line was first read in public, though there were other reasons for Heiberg’s later exile).
rea 12.31.08 at 11:29 am
Can we have gotten this far without mentioning Robert Plant, CBE?
And let us not forget Jimmy Page, OBE!
The monsterous injustice is that Led Zeppelin gets these relatively minor awards, while Andrew Lloyd Webber gets a barony . . .
Elizabeth II apparently does not rock.
Chunter 12.31.08 at 11:38 am
Congratulations to your dad – but what about Rastrick?
Barry 12.31.08 at 2:03 pm
Matt 12.31.08 at 2:59 am
“I knew that the UK had bad libel laws, but I would have thought that even there truth would be a defense! (I kid! I kid!)”
You hit on it in more ways than one – in UK libel law, isn’t truth considered an *aggravating* factor? :)
MH 12.31.08 at 3:23 pm
My congratulations to your father. Also, as a point of curiosity, do they knight Catholics now?
harry b 12.31.08 at 3:32 pm
Catholics, atheists, Hindus, Muslims, nutters… standards have dropped considerably!
MH 12.31.08 at 3:43 pm
Good to know. Those Fenian meetings were getting old and now I can quit.
Delicious Pundit 12.31.08 at 4:00 pm
Anyway, no doubt the honours system is outdated, somewhat corrupt and faintly ludicrous.
Sort of like boxing here in the States.
It’s a cliche, I know, but the honours system always reminds me of the 6:08 mark of this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=llXPtX6Pcxc
(The real estate bit earlier will give a rueful smile to the contemporary viewer.)
MarkUp 12.31.08 at 4:04 pm
Being a Yank whose only real experience with peers and such came from a group of 12 selected purposely for having not paid attention, having little curiosity, and holding strong fears of presenting an opinion; will this honor obligate Prof B to contribute a larger share to the Fix Up Buckingham Palace Fundâ„¢?
CJColucci 12.31.08 at 4:35 pm
For the benefit of an ignorant colonial, how do these peerages work? Is there any legal or material consequence to giving a title to Sir Harry, or Sir Mick, or Sir Derek? Do they get anything for it, or have any special rights, powers, or immunities? I gather their kids don’t inherit any special status. Can hereditary peerages still be handed out, like Sir Harry, First Earl of Mufaletta? Who gets to sit in the House of Lords?
MH 12.31.08 at 4:49 pm
Those knighted get to use a special check-out lane at Sainsbury’s, but are forbidden from quoting Monty Python episodes and from referring to the men’s room as ‘the bog.’
John Emerson 12.31.08 at 6:22 pm
My God, in England you can be sued for that? There are literally hundreds of motherfuckers who’d be able to make a valid claim on me if British law were in force here.
What a barbarously civilized country! Once we extricate ourselves from Iraq we must save the British from themselves.
dsquared 12.31.08 at 6:25 pm
Congratulations!
Watson Aname 12.31.08 at 7:20 pm
Congrats!
MH@25: I understand there is a new rule, forbidding them the “faux-hawk” hairstyle as well. Perhaps it’s only a proposal yet.
nick s 12.31.08 at 7:52 pm
This reminds me of a peculiarly British phenomenon: the discomfort of greeting the parents of a friend after his father received a knighthood. “Mr & Mrs X” no longer applies, but calling a friend’s mum “Lady Y” is weird. Having an additional honorific such as “Professor Brighouse” makes life a lot easier in those kinds of settings.
I had thought people like Benn who disclaimed hereditary peerages couldn’t be made life peers, but Wikipedia says they can. So it must be true.
Oh, yes: as well as Alec Douglas Home, you had Quintin Hogg, both of whom disclaimed their peerages to compete in the 1963 party leadership contest, and were re-ennobled as lifers. The only other one to receive a subsequent life peerage, according to the ‘pedia, is James Douglas-Hamilton, and since hereditary peers are no longer automatically ineligible to sit in the Commons, those three are likely to be the last.
MH 12.31.08 at 8:27 pm
If I ever win a libel suit, I’m going to set-up a school to teacher youngsters from deprived backgrounds that certain topic aren’t fit for conversation on a public bus, even if your fellow passengers can only hear half of the conversation because you are on a cell phone.
MH 12.31.08 at 8:28 pm
Unless I win a really great big settlement, in which case I’m just going to dump public transit altogether.
vivian 12.31.08 at 10:17 pm
Congratulations to both Professors Brighouse. Harry, you do realize this will impress the heck out of the (US) undergrads, and their parents even more. What do the gentleman’s grandkids think?
Watson Aname 12.31.08 at 11:04 pm
MH, it sounds like perhaps a modest investment in noise damping or canceling headphones would more immediate meet your needs.
John Quiggin 01.01.09 at 1:12 am
Congratulations!
Brett Dunbar 01.01.09 at 1:23 am
In English libel law a true statement will almost always meet the requirements for the defence of Justification, the only major exception is a conviction spent under the terms of the Rehabilitation of Offenders Act 1974, if it is referred to with Malice. Police Cautions are now treated as spent convictions from the moment they are given. For most purposes they are treated as non-existent and the press will not generally risk mentioning them.
MH 01.01.09 at 2:47 am
Watson Aname, that’s what I’ll do if I get a really small settlement. But, at the very least somebody should tell these kids that you shouldn’t talk about stuff that is illegal in public.
John Quiggin 01.01.09 at 6:48 am
One odd feature of the Order of the British Empire (under which most honours are given) is that it was only established in 1917, by which time the Empire was on its last legs. The Amritsar massacre in 1919 arguably marked the beginning of the end for the empire in India and the Chanak crisis of 1922 for the settler-dominated colonies.
bad Jim 01.01.09 at 11:11 am
And wow, by the way, congratulations!
Tim Worstall 01.01.09 at 11:23 am
“Order of the British Empire (under which most honours are given)”
Well, sorta. At the lower levels like MBE, OBE etc, yes. But not for knighthoods. There are in the UK alone 21 different variants of those. Each different type is usually given for a different type of prominence (Garter and Thistle, only 24 each at one time, retired politicians and other great and good, Michael and George for diplomats, Bath for civil servants, Victorian Order for personal service to Royal family and there’s a couple of grades in most as well. Knight, Knight Commander and GC…grand commander? I’m sure I’ve got some of those wrong but the general idea, that there’s losts of different knighthoods holds).
CMG….Commander of Michael and George: Call me God.
KCMG– Knight Commander of M&G….Kindly call me God.
GCMG…Grand Commander M&G….God calls me God.
praisegod barebones 01.01.09 at 1:26 pm
Congratulations to your Dad.
About the libel award: am I right in thinking that part of the case was related not to the question of whether he was a nutter ( though I’m sure he wasn’t), but that it was professionally damaging for someone in authority to suggest that a Chief Education Officer went around frightening children.
If so, I think its good to have libel laws to restrain people from saying this sort of thing. Particularly when they are your boss, as John Patten, in his capacity as Education secretary presumably was Brighouse’s.
harry b 01.01.09 at 1:35 pm
That’s right about the libel suit — although Patten wasn’t technically his boss; he was employed by the local education authority (Birmingham) which was Labour-run. The story I link to is, as far as I know, inaccurate, in that while I think my dad is sort of a Labur-supporter now, he wasn’t one then.
chris y 01.01.09 at 2:46 pm
Is there any legal or material consequence to giving a title to Sir Harry, or Sir Mick, or Sir Derek?
None whatsoever. It’s about like becoming an Honorary Colonel of Militia in the Commonwealth of Kentucky. Basically, it’s a way of the establishment saying, “the guy done good”. Knighthoods aren’t peerages, so they don’t entitle you to sit in the House of Lords; they may make it easier to get a table at the sort of restaurant you can imagine.
Congrats to Prof B., though, really. Sounds like the right sort of person to get a gong.
harry b 01.01.09 at 2:53 pm
Yes, there are no material advantages per se. I imagine that someone younger and more ambitious would be able to generate some career advantages from it. As to tables at restaurants — my dad is so well known at the Indian takeaways he frequents that the knighthood will not have any further effects.
A peerage is different, in two ways. On the one hand it allows you to sit in the Lords; on the other most peerages are offered by parties that expect you to take their whip. I imagine that it is far more common for people to turn down peerages than knighthoods, because the strings attached are visible, and accepting a peerage without an intention to toe the line is thought to be an act of bad faith.
Bob B 01.01.09 at 3:08 pm
“As of July 2008 the House of Lords has 746 members, 100 more than the 646 seat House of Commons.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/House_of_Lords
By precedent and tradition, peers in the Lords are much less compliant with guidance from party whips. Also, about 200 peers are declared “independent Crossbenchers” who are there mainly because of professional expertise or their career experience:
http://213.52.137.147/
Alex 01.01.09 at 5:14 pm
It was professionally damaging for someone in authority to suggest that a Chief Education Officer went around frightening children
Indeed. I suspect a few years later, Patten would have been too scared of the legal consequences to say this, as the whole topic got that much more toxic.
This is also a broadcast from the Department of Yes, the Tories Really Were That Awful.
John Emerson 01.01.09 at 9:53 pm
I thought that all Brits were nutters who went around frightening children. I’m not up to snuff on diversity sensitivity, I guess.
Bob B 01.01.09 at 10:19 pm
After years of parroting the mantra: Free Market Capitalism, and calling for more and more deregulation, the global financial crisis has rather tended to confirm JS Mill’s description of Conservatives as “the stupid party”, which leaves us very short of a credible opposition party in Britain despite Gordon Brown’s serial poor management of public finances when he was Chancellor of the Exchequer.
Some leading economists in Britain were warning about the looming consequences of the house-price bubble back in 2002 and even before. Take, just for instance, Charles Goodhart:
“CHARLES GOODHART, a former member of the Bank of England’s monetary policy committee [and economics prof at the LSE], warned yesterday that the Bank is failing to take sufficient account of the house price boom in setting interest rates.
“His warning comes amid growing fears among economists that house prices, fuelled by the lowest interest rates for 38 years, are getting out of control. Yesterday, new figures showed that homeowners are borrowing record amounts against the rising value of their homes. . . ” [6 April 2002]
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?xml=/money/2002/04/06/cngood06.xml
The rational expectation is that the Conservatives in opposition in 2002 and after would have kept on about this to call for measures to restrain the growing mountain of consumer indebtedness – which eventually reached UKP 1.4 trillion, about equal to the UK’s annual GDP – and for an end to 100 per cent and better mortgages, especially to borrowers who were persuaded into lying or failing to declare their incomes in mortgage applications.
Apparently, bankers and mortgage brokers, blinded by incentives, really came to believe that average house prices would go on rising faster that average earnings indefinitely. But then, according to impeccable Conservative sources, of the Shadow Cabinet of 29 members, no less than 19 are millionaires. Why would they care?
PG 01.02.09 at 12:14 am
I like this history-unwinding bit:
At one time, Professor Sir Tim may have been viewed as a controversial choice for a knighthood, declaring as he did in 2002 while heading up education in Birmingham, that the national curriculum was “Stalinist”.
But his inspirational, yet conciliatory leadership style won him more friends than enemies, and he was soon appointed London schools “tsar” and then chief adviser for London schools.
It’s kind of great to have a system to go from Stalinist to tsarist.
bernarda 01.02.09 at 2:42 pm
The TV series “Yes, Minister” explained the honours, “Doing the Honours”.
bernarda 01.02.09 at 4:56 pm
Yes, Prime Minister has another comment on Honours,
roac 01.02.09 at 8:11 pm
This motivated me to look and see what Tolkien got. (It’s what I do.) The answer was a CBE, although the British Empire, unlike the Monarchy, was not something he had much use for.
Incidentally, I recently discovered that JRRT was a close contemporary at King Edward’s School of Marshal William Slim, the best general of WWII on the Allied side (some say either side). He was made a Viscount.
Wikipedia’s list of KES Old Boys is fascinating. Mark Steyn is one.
nick s 01.03.09 at 6:21 am
roac: there’s an argument whether the gongs of the past 15 years or so should be seen as grade inflation, or as recognising those overlooked in the past. For instance, if you look at the list of football knighthoods, the only non-manager was Stanley Matthews until Bobby Charlton got his in 1994; cricketers did a bit better. That’s just to say that a CBE in 1972 was quite a gong.
PG 01.04.09 at 9:34 pm
His kindness bangs a gong…
dave heasman 01.06.09 at 12:55 am
“cricketers did a bit better.”
More than a bit – Learie Constantine got a peerage.
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