King's Birthday Honours 2024

You have people in the arts only getting recognised in their seventies or eighties, while Jessica Ennis-Hill was made a dame at 31. Some toil away for decades in charities for a CBE, others make a sizeable “donation” and go in the Lords.

None of it makes any sense, least of all why we even still have a King at all, never mind one giving out phoney honours in the name of the Empire.

And I suppose Rishi’s drafting his honours list as we speak. 🙄

Most countries have honours systems, although ours could definitely do with a clean-up. A lot of people confuse getting an honour in the Birthday or New Year list with being appointed to the Lords - which very definitely needs a clean-up. A lot of the complaints are fair, but some, such as 'it's only famous people' or 'what about our veterans' are due to a lack of media coverage of the less famous awardees, and forgetting that there's an entirely different system for awarding military achievements.

There are a number of discrepancies, and a number of reasons for it. As ronnette points out, some people may quietly decline the honour. In some cases, the body that researches the potential honouree may find something potentially embarrassing that isn't public knowledge. There did seem to be an attempt to avoid giving honours to those who are tax exiles, or have been involved with some other 'tax efficiency' scheme that isn't very patriotic.

If I understand correctly, awards must be applied for. You don't necessarily have to do so yourself, and in the case of Olympians it gets done automatically by the governing body, and they seem to apply slightly different rules. The tradition has been that you cannot get an upgraded award less than five years after the previous, but for Olympians it's been reduced to four years. Once Kelly Holmes was made a Dame after she retired with two Olympic golds when it was rare, it became trickier to deny other multiple gold medallists the same honour even now it's more common.

There are categories of achievement, and if I remember correctly it's to do with achievement and how far reaching it is. If your achievement is of global significance, rather than national you get a higher award. When it comes to sport then representing your country without making lots of money, especially at the Olympics, is deemed more worthy of reward than a footballer winning the Premiership or Formula 1.

I'm pretty sure there are different committees for the arts vs sports vs science etc. So they'll have their own reasoning and benchmarks. It makes sense that athletes that retire by 35 will get big awards younger than actors. Personally, I'd like it if actual Knighthoods/Damehoods were reserved until after retirement, but that particular ship has long-since sailed.

Rumour has it that David Beckham turned down a CBE because he thought it would stop him from getting a Knighthood, or at least delay it. Personally, I don't think his on pitch sporting achievements justify a Knighthood, but a CBE isn't unreasonable when you throw in his other stuff. There were also rumours that he'd been a bit too efficient with his tax. Lewis Hamilton being an ex-pat for tax purposes is often cited as it taking him so long to get one.

Awards for the arts are more subjective, and arguably over reliant on assessing which other awards the person has, and how high profile any charity work is. It would be interesting to know who is on the committee - presumably other people in the arts who have tastes and opinions that may not match our own. But I'd say a big part is down to the person's agent and whether they think it will be good for their career to fill out an application on their behalf and if they are willing and able to get them seen to be doing the right sort of things. I don't know if BAFTA or any equivalent organisations ever pull together applications for members.

Depending on what you do, awards aren't always appropriate. I think Jon Snow said he didn't think working journalists should be accepting awards, and Stephen Moffat thought it was OK for him in his role as writer/producer with opinions to accept a CBE, but not a Knighthood. If you see yourself as anti-establishment, or at least standing up to it - can you accept arguably arbitrary awards? There's no such conflict of interest for gold medal winning athletes.

Love that Imelda is going to be a Dame. So well deserved.

The papers will headline her damehood investiture as that of the “Queen” being honoured by “her son” (especially if it’s King Charles himself who will be in the ceremony). The Crown references and all.

I also hope her damehood announcement is going hand in hand with her potential Emmy nomination for the final season of The Crown, the nominations will be announced next month.

Also another The Crown alumnus, Alex Jennings (who played The Duke of Windsor in the show and also played Prince Charles in The Queen, starring Helen Mirren; also a Peter Morgan project), will be awarded the CBE. It’s his first time to get a royal honour, and it’s a long time coming.