For some subjects of Queen Elizabeth, the honours system is a relic of a defunct empire, writes Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor
L.S. Lowry refused five of them. Trevor Brooking, soccer pundit and one-time head of the English sports council, is alleged to have been denied one because of his criticism of the Blair government. Comedian Dawn French has also spurned one, although husband Lenny Henry accepted one from Tony Blair, having declined the offer of one from John Major. They are, of course, British honours or "gongs".
Twice each year, Queen Elizabeth, acting on the kind advice of her Prime Minister, awards some of her subjects with one of a series of titles, medals or knighthoods. Like the state opening of parliament and prize-giving at Wimbledon it is seen as the epitome of Britishness. Or rather, it was.
Up to 300 "refuseniks" since 1945 have shunned the offer of a day out at Buckingham Palace and the right to an abbreviation after their names. They include Graham Greene, David Hockney, John le Carré, Robert Graves, Aldous Huxley and Evelyn Waugh. There's also J.B. Priestley, Anthony Powell, Roald Dahl, Philip Larkin, as well as Trevor Howard, Alastair Sim and Alfred Hitchcock, Kenneth Branagh and John Cleese.
Some, outed recently by the Sunday Times, cited reasons of political manoeuvrings by politicians. Others complained the system of honouring people was elitist, in need of an upgrade or past its time altogether.
Albert Finney complained of the monarch's practice of knighting genuflecting subjects as "perpetuating snobbery". Playwright Michael Frayne said the idea was "slightly ludicrous" and author J.G. Ballard said it is a "preposterous charade".
He added: "Thousands of medals are given out in the name of a non-existent empire. It makes us look a laughing stock and encourages deference to the crown. I think it is exploited by politicians and always has been."
Strong stuff. However, this week nearly 1,000 proud people accepted an honour. The BBC's Nicholas Parsons likened the idea of spurning an award to opening a gift then handing it back. Bad manners, actually.
In a delicious incongruity, Maurice Frankel, the director of the Campaign for Freedom of Information in Britain, was honoured this week. However, the very system that selects and approves his honour is a prized state secret with not even the papers involved included for release by the government after 30 years.
The publication of leaked documents from the civil service committee which draws up the honours list prompted a typical Whitehall response. Downing Street said it wouldn't comment on a leak and an inquiry was launched to uncover the traitor.
A review, headed by senior civil servant Sir Hayden Phillips, is underway and it's reported he is convinced it is time to end the secretive system of giving away titles linked to a vanished empire.
"The aim is to boost the credibility of the system," said one MP, Tony Wright, by way of mild understatement.Both Blair and Major have already altered the method of naming those to be honoured. Some 48 per cent of the names on the most recent honours list were nominated or supported by ordinary members of the public. Current lists are punctuated by school dinner ladies and postmen. Ordinary people who work "at the sharp end", as Downing Street likes to put it, are now honoured alongside the Sir Tufton-Bufton types from Whitehall.
However, for all that, nearly one award in three goes to a civil servant. Some now feel that ageing, career pen-pushers are more than overly represented while other groups are blatantly ignored. Only one in five honours recognises women's achievements and just 4 per cent of "gongs" go to British blacks or Asians.
In November, Rastafarian poet Benjamin Zephaniah made his rejection of an award public, complaining that the reference to the "British Empire" in his proposed title reminded him of slavery.
Apart from the occasional public refusal of a medal, most who decline do so silently. One well-known Northern public figure has told The Irish Times of the reasons for the decision taken only on condition of the swearing of secrecy. Nomination, to say nothing of actual acceptance, was deemed to be potentially damaging.
Just to confuse matters, about a fifth of those Britons who decline honours change their minds when offered a second time.
Awards are considered by honours committees before going to Queen Elizabeth via the prime minister. Minutes reveal that a government scientific adviser threatened to quit because his experiments involving animals were deemed too controversial and he couldn't be given an honour.
Oxford University's Colin Blakemore said he would resign as a senior medical research adviser unless the government affirmed the need for such experiments in science.
"The honours system is not the rigorous assessment of merit we hoped it would be," he told the BBC. "What we see seems to be subject to personal whim, political expediency, perhaps to blackballing by individuals; that is why I presume so many people have turned down honours."
The minor storm over the honours system capped a difficult year for Tony Blair, dominated as it was by allegations that he exaggerated the reasons for invading Iraq.
Public confidence in a government's ability to be both open and straight appears to be slipping. Freedom of Information legislation, passed by the Commons in 2000, is still not in force and will not be before 2005. The year MPs passed the measure a public opinion poll indicated that just 16 per cent of Britons believed their government would put the national interest above party-political ones.
Only 33 per cent believe their government trusts government scientists to come clean on major health issues.
This tide of cynicism has meant that, even when the government tells the truth, most people won't believe it.