I CAN think of only three occasions when the Tory party got a warm reception in our house. The first was when Edward Heath brought in the pensioners’ Christmas bonus, the second was its decision to allow all-day drinking and the third was when it knifed Margaret Thatcher so ruthlessly in the back that one could only gasp in admiration at its butchery skills.

But with 2005 barely off the starting blocks I find myself in the shocking position of agreeing with it once again. The honours list is indeed a joke and not just because it once appointed Jim Davidson OBE. Liam Fox did the country a service yesterday when he savaged the Prime Minister for using the system to reward failure. When the rest of us fail in our jobs we get a P45. Tony’s cronies get an appointment with the Queen.

Outrageous, isn’t it, that the former boss of the laughably incompetent Child Support Agency is made a Commander of the Order of the Bath? That the civil servant who ran David Blunkett’s office at the height of the Nannygate affair is knighted. That the former head of Railtrack, an outfit whose failings remain a national scandal, becomes a CBE? As Mr Fox says, the New Year Honours amounted to little more than “gongs for gaffes”.

But the Tories should not stop their assault there. If they really want to pack a punch why not target the increasingly cynical use of “the people’s honours” as petticoats to disguise what the honours list is really about? We all know that a photo of a cheery lollipop lady or a hospital porter is a cosy and politically correct distraction from the fact that another wealthy party donor or a senior civil servant has quietly trousered a knighthood.

The Government banks on the public being so swept up in the showbiz drama of celebrity honours (“Arise, Sir Mick Jagger” — and in his training shoes too!) that it won’t notice that this is really just a glorified exercise in political backscratching. No one would begrudge the magnificent Kelly Holmes an ounce of her recognition, but cannot you picture the gleeful faces of the honours committee when she won her double gold? “Female, black and working-class. Bingo! Make her a dame and that is the news headlines taken care of.”

The people’s honours shamelessly manipulate public emotion, and we fall for it every time. Just as we did when Geoff Hurst became a knight. Thirty-two years had elapsed since his 1966 hat-trick but uncannily it was not until a week before the World Cup began in 1998 that new Labour chose to knight him, creating overnight a football feelgood factor which was entirely of the spin-doctors’ making.

This Government promised but has so far failed to overhaul the honours system. It would be refreshing if the Conservatives would seize the moment and pull the edifice down. But don’t hold your breath. All politicians seem equally invested in a system which works very works nicely for them, thank you, because it means friends can be rewarded with something even more valuable than money — instant social status. Let us not forget that just before he left office John Major, who recently said he had no truck with titles and was appalled by the amount of sucking up that people did to get them, was quietly knighting another boss of Railtrack, while we all went gaga over Sir Paul McCartney and headlines such as Dub, Dub Me Do. Some brave soul should make it his business to get the system changed. And when he does he should get a gong for it.

Who is upsetting whom?

INTERESTING that the Women’s Institute should be the only group to fire off a solicitor’s letter about its portrayal on the sublime BBC comedy show Little Britain. In a series of sketches they are depicted as a stuck-up, intolerant, blue-rinse brigade, who vomit at the mere mention of anyone who is not white and heterosexual.

Perish the thought that the WI lacks a sense of humour, but it is surely worth noting that there have been no complaints from homosexual groups over the portrayal of David as an obsessive, mincing gay; no complaints from dieters’ groups over fat people being mocked as stinking, morbidly obese pigs; from the disabled over the portrayal of Andy, a wheelchair-bound slob who fakes his disability out of laziness; or even from dwarfism sufferers, who in one sketch are labelled “ooompaloompas”?

Ironically, I have heard several complaints from men who said that they found the sight of acres of ageing, naked flesh in the WI’s racy charity calendars upsetting in the extreme. Well you know what they say, ladies? If you can’t take it, don’t dish it out.

Wealth redistribution

IT IS comforting to know that in these desperate times our über-rich celebrities are busy distributing their wealth to those who need it most. David and Victoria Beckham, who spent a mere £500,000 on their two sons’ christenings, treated impoverished guests such as Elton John and Elizabeth Hurley to a butler for the day, and sent each home with a goodie bag containing their own personal diamond.

Isn’t that nice? If there is anything that Sir Elton lacks in his life it is someone to run around after him and a sparkly new addition to his jewellery box. I am sure the people of Sudan and Indonesia will sleep more soundly tonight knowing that a few millionaires are a fraction richer. And those who, in 2004, accused the Beckhams of being vain, crass and vulgar should be hanging their heads in shame.

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