We should welcome Lynton Crosby's knighthood

The honours system was ever thus.  Originally devised by absolute monarchs as a means of providing for their bastard progeny, and perhaps as compensation for the cuckolded husbands of the passing occupants of the royal bed, peerages have always been a reward for service to the ruling elite.  Knighthoods, too, have generally been bestowed upon those whose activities have served and bolstered the privilege of the ruling elite.

In the years after the Second World War, the façade of democracy was built up through the use of the lower honours – the MBEs, OBEs and BEMs – to reward charity volunteers, lollypop men and dinner ladies, and the host of entertainers and sportspeople who engage in the essential work of distracting the masses from the injustice of the British class system.  Even so, for the most part, the honours system provided rewards for service to the ruling elite.  This has always been most obvious in the honours conferred upon the luminaries of the (centre) left.  Over the years we have witnessed a steady stream of “moderate” trades union leaders famous primarily for shafting their own members, elevated to the peerage or knighted be the monarch of the day.

As with so much of British life, Blair’s New Labour government was responsible for messing things up.  In opposition, New Labour had used a growing voluntary (sic) sector as an alternative civil service; developing many of the policies that the incoming government eventually enacted.  As a reward, New Labour opened up the honours system to people employed in the voluntary sector, together with the special advisors and senior civil servants charged with enacting New Labour’s programme.

The public were involved to the extent that we were all invited to nominate people who had provided public service.  These nominees would be vetted by a new Honours Committee, which would forward their recommended recipients to the Prime Minister.

These Blairite changes served to confuse the public into believing that the honours system was no longer about privilege and class.  However, even under Blair, the charity fundraisers and lollypop men only got the lesser honours.  Peerages and knighthoods continued to be the preserve of the brown-nosers and lackeys of the ruling elite.

This is why we should welcome Lynton Crosby’s knighthood.  It is an honour in keeping with the historical tradition of the honours system.  It is a reward for (cynical and socially divisive) service to the ruling elite.  It highlights exactly what the system is about.  It helps us tear aside the curtain of celebrities and community workers to see the real class divisions of our increasingly inequitable and divided society.

We should recognise that you cannot have a democratic honours system when you do not live in a democracy.  Nor can you expect a grossly inequitable society to produce anything other than a class-ridden system of rewards to those who serve it.

Like statues in public places, knighthoods and peerages are generally a reward for crapping from on high onto the heads of ordinary people.  And like statues in public places, the best we can say is that the pigeons have it about right!