Rod Liddle Rod Liddle

The honour that truly stinks came from Corbyn

Those outraged over peerages for trivialities have overlooked Shami Chakrabarti’s reward for an anti-Semitism whitewash

Another honours list comes and goes and yet again my name is not on it. I don’t think either the Prime Minister or Jeremy Corbyn realises the hurt that this flagrant oversight engenders, both in myself and of course in my public. For countless years I have tried, selflessly, to make the world a better place, to illuminate the poor and the downtrodden with the light of love. I have endeavoured, wherever I can, in my own way, to bring comfort to the sick — not only those who are physically infirm, but also mentals. And yet — nothing, nix.

More pertinently, with regard to the latest honours list from David Cameron, I was at a party at the end of last year and offered Sam Cam a fag. Given the sorts of people who Dave has ennobled, I would have thought that was worth a CBE at the very least. It was one of those parties where people kept coming up and saying to me ‘I don’t smoke, but…’ — and in this way my stock of Superkings was depleted within the hour. I was down to my last five or six when I saw Samantha standing there, clearly gagging for a gasper. This act of kindness, like so many others, went-unrewarded.

I suppose one should consider virtue to be its own reward and not hanker after mere baubles. But it is not for myself that I entreat, you understand — it is simply a wish on my part to rehabilitate the honours system in the eyes of the public. Too often I hear people decry what they call a charade, citing the awards doled out to cronies, lickspittles, wankers, desiccated mandarins, half-witted sportswomen, professional lesbians, time-serving persistent vegetative state dullards, pompous community panjandrums and smirking air-headed luvvies. Their descriptions, not mine.

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