It looks like the former footballer David Beckham is to become a knight of the realm, as part of King Brian’s upcoming birthday honours list. Well, worse people have had them. Sir Jimmy Savile, Sir Jacob Rees-Mogg, Sir Robert Mugabe, Sir Benito Mussolini, Sir Michael Fabricant, Sir Philip Green to name but six. Trust me when I say that that list could have gone on forever, a list of the not so great and good, including absolute monsters like Savile. Beckham OBE, who played 115 games for England, is at least as deserving of a knighthood, right?
If you have faith in the current honours system, then unquestionably the answer is yes. Becks, as I call him, not only played football at the highest level for many years, he has done some charity work, he’s been a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF for 20 years, has a gold Blue Peter badge (one for the teenagers, there) and has a ridiculously great body for a bloke of 50. If that’s not enough to deserve a major gong, then what is?
I am certainly not bitter and twisted, oh no. I did consider my 39 years of public service (meaning that I did the job I was paid to do in the civil service), worked for two charities and now volunteer for another, but quickly accepted that actually I had done nothing exceptional. Most people work for a living, many people go good things for no reward, simply because they want to do them. In short, we don’t expect to be summoned by King Brian to Buckingham Palace and been awarded some kind of medal.
It could be argued that even the great and the good who get gongs shouldn’t really get them. Controversial, I know, but for everyone who does something great for the country and gets an honour, there must be millions who don’t. And without the vast legion of volunteers who carry out vital functions and fundraise to keep vital services running – lifeboats, air ambulance, hospices – this country would fall to pieces. These people don’t seek rewards: they want to do good things. And that’s all.
Should we review the honours system to somehow ensure that people who make a contribution are properly recognised and rewarded? I’m not sure we can because, as I never tire of saying, there are so many people doing good things, quietly and without publicity, you would probably miss all of them out when it came to handing honours out. I have a rather simple – or is it simplistic? – solution. How about properly funding public services, making the country more equal so that less people exist in hunger and squalor, effectively ending the need for charities like food banks?
Don’t get me wrong: I love David Beckham. I saw him as a great footballer, one who was, like most of us, not born with a unique talent, but a man who utilised his natural athleticism and skills by working hard to become even better. Whether he should be knighted for all the trophies he won and for his 115 England appearances is a moot point. Isn’t winning trophies, representing one’s country and becoming fabulously rich enough?
I suppose I will smile when ‘Sir’ David bows down to King Brian because I genuinely like him both as a former footballer and a ‘celebrity’, as he is today. In the real world, low paid staff and volunteers will be there, day in, day out, doing good things that make our country vaguely civilised, not getting a gong but enjoying the satisfaction, yes, the reward, of helping others.
Any kind of reward that is deemed appropriate to give to Jimmy Savile is probably not one I would want. Luckily, I am so far down the food chain, the sinister mandarins who decide the allocation of awards are not likely to find out I even exist, so it will not be an issue. Sir David and Lady Posh Becks? I’m afraid so. We’re a nation of cap doffers and frankly the current honours system is no more than we deserve.
