Salman Rushdie, the author who spent almost a decade in hiding after an Iranian religious death threat, is knighted in the Queen’s Birthday Honours today.

Ian Botham, the England cricket hero, becomes “Sir Beefy”, while Barry Humphries – the Australian perhaps better known as Dame Edna Everage – is also honoured.

Oleg Gordievsky, another international name with a somewhat more serious past, is recognised “for services to the security of the United Kingdom”.

Mr Gordievsky, once a colonel in the KGB and the highest-ranking Soviet spy ever to defect to the West, receives a CMG (Companion of the Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George) in the Diplomatic List – the same honour as held by his fictitious counterpart James Bond.

There is no award for David Beckham, despite widespread speculation to the contrary, but his former Manchester United teammate Ryan Giggs, who has recently retired from his international career with Wales, receives an OBE.

Teddy Sheringham, the former England footballer, picks up an MBE. Terry Griffiths, the 1979 world snooker champion, is appointed OBE.

The sportsmen are three of the best known names on today’s list of 946 recipients, but there are also a host of awards for famous figures from the arts and media. These range from TV historian David Starkey – once dubbed “the rudest man in Britain” – to Christiane Amanpour, the CNN journalist who has reported live from war zones around the world. Both are appointed CBE, while the rock and blues star Joe Cocker is appointed OBE.

Stephen Poliakoff, the television dramatist, novelist Rose Tremain, and Michael Eavis, organiser of the Glastonbury festival, also join the list of leading cultural lights to be appointed CBE. Mr Eavis, who is busily preparing for the start of this year’s festival on Friday, said: “I’ve spent 37 years running my show and trying to curry favour with the authorities just to make it happen.

“I’m so pleased not only for myself but for the hundreds and perhaps thousands of people who have had faith in me and supported my ideas through thick and thin.”

Bill Pertwee, the 80-year-old star of Dad’s Army and three Carry On films, is appointed MBE.

The actress Sylvia Syms and Peter Sallis, who played Norman Clegg in Last of the Summer Wine and provided the voice of Wallace in the hit Wallace and Gromit, are appointed OBEs.

Campaigners of various stripes are also honoured by the Queen today.

Jane Tomlinson, who has raised millions for charity despite having terminal cancer, is appointed CBE, along with Sharmi Chakrabarti, the director of campaign group Liberty and Robert Niven, the chief executive of the Disability Rights Commission.

It is partly for his own campaigning that Ian Botham, who already had an OBE, receives a knighthood today.

Botham, who scored 5,200 runs and took 383 wickets in 102 test matches for England, has raised around £10 million for Leukaemia Research.

Yesterday, he said that “one does not work without the other”.

“What I achieved on the cricket field and the status I achieved with the public has allowed me to then go and raise the money for leukaemia.”

The 51-year-old, who has watched fellow cricketers Sir Viv Richards and Sir Richard Hadlee receive knighthoods before him, said he was delighted by his honour.

He paid tribute to his wife, Kath, who has helped him to organise his high profile John O’Groats to Lands’ End charity walks. Referring to his former Somerset teammate, with whom he used to live, he added: “How many people would have thought that Viv and I would be here when we started out in his flat as teenagers?”

Rushdie, another new knight, said he was “thrilled and humbled” to be made a sir for services to literature.

The Bombay-born writer, whose latest novel is Shalimar the Clown, said that he was “very grateful that my work has been recognised in this way”.

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