If I’d ever had a doubt that Owen Smith is either hypocritical or thinks the British public are stupid, or is maybe a combination of both, that doubt has this morning been laid to rest. He has announced to the world that, in the wake of the brouhaha about David Cameron’s honours list, he would, if Prime Minister, suspend all honours for five years. “David Cameron’s resignation honours list has brought the system into disrepute and deepened people’s mistrust of politics”.
Sweet patron saint of politicians – did you ever hear such guff? As Samuel Johnson almost said, it’s not a question of its being done well or poorly, it’s a question of its being done at all. Of course there are people in every community who merit recognition for the good work they do. But doing it by making them a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (MBE), an Officer of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (OBE), or a Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (CBE) or a Knight Commander or Dame Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire (KBE or DBE)? Pu-lease. The poet and wise human being Benjamin Zephaniah said it best, when he got a letter telling him the queen had approved that he become an Officer of the Order of the British Empire:
“Me? I thought, OBE me? Up yours, I thought. I get angry when I hear that word ‘empire’; it reminds me of slavery, it reminds of thousands of years of brutality, it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised. It is because of this concept of empire that my British education led me to believe that the history of black people started with slavery and that we were born slaves, and should therefore be grateful that we were given freedom by our caring white masters. It is because of this idea of empire that black people like myself don’t even know our true names or our true historical culture. I am not one of those who are obsessed with their roots, and I’m certainly not suffering from a crisis of identity; my obsession is about the future and the political rights of all people. Benjamin Zephaniah OBE – no way Mr Blair, no way Mrs Queen. I am profoundly anti-empire.”
And the fact that you, Mr Smith, are busily trying to unseat your party leader so that you might conceivably one day squirm yourself into a position where you hand out these absurd trinkets to easily-overawed people, all the while congratulating yourself that you’ve held off easing some bloated Labour Party arses into seats in the House of Lords – these dreams of yours tell us as much as we need to know about your potential for leadership. You got it right, Benjamin. Up yours, Mr Smith.
That’s your OBE scuppered, jude.
Damn. And I’d been practising walking backwards…
Glad to have you back, Jude and with your humour still intact.
Well I suppose it’s the equivalent of being recognised as a Member Of The Roman Empire(MRE) …The Portuguese Empire(MPE)…the Yuan Dynasty(MYD)…..The Spanish Empire(MSE)….the Russian Empire(MRE)…the Mongol Empire(MME).. and few others i may have missed which are done and dusted and long-since gone.
It’s fantasyland really isn’t it?None of those “empires” exist any more, so you’d be better advised getting a Micky Mouse Fan Club Badge . At least the mouse still has an empire.That’s more than can be said for Her Maj.It’s a joke that’s been stretched too far as to be worthless, Isn’t it? It’s like being “knighted” .What the hell is that all about , in the 21st century? It has no meaning whatsoever.
How could you forget MOPE?
Member Orange Protestant Empire!
Just walk forward with your hat on back to front and the uppity classes will never know the difference, gets ’em everytime lol
I share your feelings , Jude. You neglected to mention knight of the Thistle and the Grand Order of the Bath or has it gone down the plughole.
The honours list is a convenient red herring for Mr Smith. It would appear that Mr Smith’s preoccupation with nuclear deterrents and the honours list does not leave him much time to reflect on current living standards or the issue of alleged child abuse. The controversy over the honours list enables him to divert attention from past and present social and economic conditions in Britain. Not so for Mr Heseltine interviewed on BBC Radio 4 on 2 August 2016. He discussed his 1981 cabinet paper, ‘It Took a Riot’ a plan to save inner cities, some with 30% – 50% unemployment. Mrs Thatcher ignored Mr Heseltine’s views about “yobs on the streets” and riots took place during Mr Thatcher’s early monetarist economic experiment resulting in chronic unemployment.
Mr Smith appears to have been rendered speechless about an inquiry set up in 2014 amid claims of an establishment cover-up following allegations that a paedophile ring operated in Westminster in the 1980s. The purpose of the inquiry was to investigate the extent to which state and non-state institutions failed in their duty of care to protect children from sexual abuse and exploitation in England and Wales. Three chairs and tens of thousands of pounds later, there is a vacancy for yet another chair for the proceedings. Recent media reports suggest that the work is well paid and the holidays are excellent.
Owen who? Again.
The peerage for Shami Chakrabarti so soon after her ‘independent’ report on the Labour Party is certainly a bad idea in my view.
Why is Corbyn not being criticised here for playing along with the honours system?
It seems perverse to have a go at Smith for his opportunism and yet completely ignore Corbyn’s which not only smacks of cronyism but is hardly in keeping with his principled stance against the honours system.
One thing which has always puzzled at least one Honours List anorak, Esteemed Blogmeister, is this :
– Is a loyal be-knighted subject duty-bound to shed one’s title should one have the great misfortune to fall on lean times?
And end up, say, kipping in a lean-to shed with nothing more than, say, unsold copies of last Sunday’s Sindo for one’s blanket?
Is the shedding of one’s title to one’s title ( having already shed one’s newspaper titles ) incumbent upon the titled one out of due respect to one’s benefactress, HRH ? And so spare Her Maj the blushes normally associated with what is known in legal circles as ‘silt by association’.
A class of Nobbled Oblige, that sorta thingy ?
Given how dashed difficult it can be for even the most toadying of Mainlanders to become Toads of Toad Hall, how much more d.d. it must be for the most loyal shoneen citizen of the Free Southern Stateen to attain such an accolade. Even after a life spent selflessly catching the trouser coughs of Royalty for a hobby cum duty.
(One suppresses one’s sobs even as one mentions the as yet untitled Gay Byrne/ GB in passing).
ONE CAN BUT SURMISE WHAT IT TAKES TO GET A RISE OUT OF ROYALTY
To get to kneel, feeled and to rise as a ‘sir’
To walk backwards from the foxfur of ‘Her’
One could easily imagi
Sir showered Majesty
With gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh.
One also, sadly, thinks of Sir Anthony J. O’Reilly, that fine freckle-foreheaded fellow who was at one time His Maker’s Ambassador down among the movers and shakers on Planet E. Not to mention press baron, rugger mugger, bean counter, and acclaimed connoisseur of fellow celebs, cut glass super bowls as well as willow-pattern pottery.
Even the dogs in the street, including the fidos of the fiduciary world, knew that Sir Anthony, as a proud wearer of the green gansey, when in his pomp would always stomp his Guccis and quite rightly insist on being addressed by his inferiors as:
– Sir and/or, Savin’ yer prisince, sor.
Not being in regular receipt of the Doss House Daily, E.B, one is, alas, unable to report if Anthony J. O’Reilly in his contemporary incarnation is equally insistent that his current companions of the urine-scented mattressati, desist from addressing him as was his wont in a his old addresses on five continents. It is the very least one would expect him to do out of due deference to the Q.
Speaking of queens, the actor Raymond Burr spent his life in the Hollywood closet. Indeed, he was said to have had compiled quite a collection of fashionable ladies’ clothing (fit for a queen, sized XXXXXXL) and which he kept hanging in the same closet.
AS DAY OF RECKONING FOLLOWS KNIGHTHOOD
Perry Mason was played by burly Raymond Burr
Who preferred to play madame to his Adam, sir
Fate dealt Tones a real low blow
Spread-eagled now on Skid Row
The non-regal digs of a no-chauffeur entrepreneur.
” It is because of this concept of empire that my British education led me to believe that the history of black people started with slavery and that we were born slaves, and should therefore be grateful that we were given freedom by our caring white masters. It is because of this idea of empire that black people like myself don’t even know our true names or our true historical culture”
Black people certainly weren’t born slaves, that is true but this myth (and it is a myth and a lie) that Slavery was made by White people is ridiculous. Slavery was common across all races in History. The very word “Slav”, as in the Slavic people of Eastern Europe, is where the word “Slave” comes from. The Slavic people are a White European people who were commonly enslaved by the likes of the Vikings, Goths, etc and traded into the Middle East Slave Markets. Indeed far more Blacks were enslaved into the Arab Slave Trade (along with millions of European Whites) than Blacks enslaved in the Atlantic Slave Trade. The big difference was the British Empire abolished Slavery in 1803 and spent tons of silver and gold in disrupting the Slave Trade elsewhere. Saudi Arabia didn’t abolish Slavery until 1960! And there has been reports/evidence that Slavery still goes on in the Arab world….
What often gets overlooked is the fact Blacks were as guilty of slavery as any Arab or European. Europeans couldn’t go into the African interior because of diseases, wild animals, etc so Black tribes conquered other tribes, enslaved the people and transported the slaves to be bought by Slave Dealers at the Coasts. The Arabs were able to go into the Africa interior and enslaved Blacks themselves. The Arabs also enslaved millions of Europeans being raiding the European Coasts. They even went to Cork, Ireland and enslaved the entire town of Baltimore, the citizens were carted off to the Arabian Slave Markets……
Slavery in any form, by anyone, is wrong, that goes without saying. But what is always curious to me is why its always White people who are deemed and expected to be the only people guilty of it (despite it being outlawed centuries ago by Europeans) but no expectations are made of Arabs, the Chinese, the Turks, etc who all had FAR bigger slave trades than even the British Empire had. The Arabs/Turks/Chinese haven’t even acknowledged their role in Slavery, never mind apologized for it. And, of course, there is utter silence from Far Left Social Justice Warriors on these facts…….Whitey is to blame for all the World’s problems, that’s their logic.
I don’t think Owen Smith has a chance of unseating Jeremy Corybn. The lies by the media is getting ridiculous. They said the other day that it was “unlikely” that Corybn could win an election, despite Labour already winning a by-election and the London Mayor election under his leadership…..
Haha Mighty Perk…trust you to remind me of Mr Ironsides himself, the Perry Mason of 1960’s television courtroom fame. Somehow it had slipped under my radar and I had conveniently forgotton that Mr Burr was one of the gay brotherhood alongside that heartbeaker Doctor Kildare who in his alte-ego Dick Chamberlain broke many a foolish female’s unrequited heart. How many more “Rocks” of the Hudson variety have been dug up in the hills of Hollywood in these past years..?
That mightn’t be Hollywood, Nornironsides now might it, Protean Pk ?
I do like the sound of that “Protean PK”, Mighty Perk….I feel another alter-ego coming on ….or I might just be having a hot flush…