A dishonourable practice?

WHAT do Trevor Brooking, Jilly Cooper, Richard Whiteley and Pam Ayres have in common? Or what about David Bowie, Albert Finney, Nigella Lawson and French and Saunders? Clue: it's all to do with extra letters.

Not Countdown, even though it is all about getting your vowels and consonants in the right order. The answer is that the first group is made up of those awarded honours to mark the Queen's Birthday last month; the second, of those who have turned down such honours in the past.

But the first group could see the letters after their names becoming rather dated, if a proposal put forward by a group of MPs finds favour. A report by the cross-party committee yesterday called for a wholesale reform of Britain's honours system, sweeping away the connotations of class and snobbery.

Knighthoods and damehoods are signs of a preoccupation with rank and should be phased out; the Order of the British Empire is inappropriate and should be replaced by the Order of British Excellence; automatic honours for civil servants should be scrapped - the House of Commons public administration committee believes nothing less than this will restore credibility to a secretive, over-complicated and out of date method of rewarding public service.

It was a good, old-fashioned row over who should receive honours which prompted MPs to carry out their review.

As head of the Medical Research Council and one of the country's leading scientists, Professor Colin Blakemore could reasonably be expected to be in line for a gong, but a leaked document showed his support for animal experiments ruled him out.

The same document showed that Tim Henman was being recommended for an OBE, to "add interest" to the list.

The proposals have drawn predictable cries of outrage from the guardians of tradition. Constitutional expert and former Tory minister Lord St John of Fawsley describes the recommendations as "absurd", saying they would have damaging consequences. "We would be cutting ourselves off from a system which is understood by the people. It would create confusion," he says.

Harold Brooks-Baker, director of Burke's Peerage, says that, although reform of the honours system is needed, and honours should be in the gift of the monarch rather than the prime minister, the committee's reforms are too radical, and scrapping knighthoods would remove much of the incentive for public service.

But it is the class distinctions permeating the honours system which undermine it as a way of rewarding public service, according to Redcar MP Vera Baird.

"I reflected on whether we need any honours at all, but I think there is a reason to give public praise to people who have done good work that contributes to society, but anything other than three or four categories of one award should be abolished.

"I'm completely against knighthoods and damehoods: they're redolent of an old-fashioned class division, which we just want to bring to an end," she says.

What honours there are should be decided by an independent commission, on recommendations from the public, without interference from prime ministers and other politicians, she adds, and automatic honours for civil servants should be scrapped.

"You shouldn't get anything just for doing your job well. The class connotations are outmoded and inappropriate and still put a premium on things that are not worthy.

"The system is not on merit alone, and it is clear that some professions, such as the Army, the civil service, Parliament, get preference over others, and there is a kind of Buggins turn," she says.

The word "Empire" , a throwback to the days when the British Empire covered a quarter of the world's land mass, is out of place in these post-imperial days, she adds.

"There isn't a British Empire any more. Imperialism is part of our history, but it is an outmoded turn of phrase.

"Someone from a Commonwealth country probably wouldn't like to get an Order of the British Empire, because they don't want to be necessarily reminded that there was once an empire. Instead, they are part of a Commonwealth, where all people are equal," she says.

It was his objection to "empire", and its associations with slavery and repression, which prompted poet Benjamin Zephaniah to turn down the offer of an OBE last year.

"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," he wrote last year.

In rejecting the honour, earning himself widespread criticism in the process, Zephaniah joined the ranks of those who turned down gongs, which, in addition to the foursome above, includes Graham Greene, David Hockney, LS Lowry, Alfred Hitchcock, Honor Blackman and George Melly.

But while anything to do with honours is controversial now, in 20 years time we will wonder what the fuss was about, reckons Dr Martin Farr, British history lecturer at Newcastle University.

"In 20 years time, it will be seen as anachronistic that we had this system of titles in the first place," he says.

"The honours system is essentially part of a class system, where the MBEs go to the common people and the KBEs to civil servants, and in a classless society that could be seen as quite out of keeping."

He says the honours system is one of the key ways a government dispenses patronage, encouraging loyalty with the hope of public recognition. "It is unwritten and based on influence, but nevertheless it is a way of exerting power," he says.

"It is a matter of course for civil servants, and the civil service is largely a white, male, middle class clique. They are awarded to a self-serving, self-replicating group of people.

"And for many people the idea of having anything which relates to the empire is greatly embarrassing and upsetting," he says.

While many people may instinctively recoil from the idea of changing a system which has been in place for generations, Dr Farr says there will come a time when we will look back on the present honours system with amazement.

"It is a hangover from empire and when Britain was a class-ridden society. It is a much more egalitarian society now, and although at the moment people will regard these proposals as too modern, in 20 years time the old system will seem like an anachronism," he says.