Word is that Tony Blair may pass up the tradition of bestowing resignation honours, fearful that it would send the wrong signal while some of his friends are under the cosh in the “cash for honours” scandal. It is a pity because one suspects that the most intuitive politician of his generation would otherwise have bestowed a parting knighthood upon the man who was so glaringly overlooked in the Queen’s Birthday Honours – Mr Posh Spice.

When details were leaked a few weeks ago that the erstwhile England captain might be in line for an award that eluded the late Bobby Moore, there was something close to outrage. How, it was argued, could someone who lacked any significant international success as a sportsman be given one of this nation’s highest honours? How could someone who bombed out in the quarter-finals of the World Cup be considered worthy of an award that has escaped the majority of those who triumphed in 1966?

The problem with this argument (notwithstanding the fact that David Beckham has won six Premiership titles, two FA Cups, one Champions League, one Spanish league title and 96 caps for England, 58 as captain) is that it assumes that a sportsman’s contribution is measured solely in terms of medals. It assumes that one could come up with a formula that awards points to sportsmen and women – ten for an Olympic gold, perhaps, three for a Premiership winner’s medal, etc – and then bestows awards mechanically.

The point about Beckham, however, is that he deserves a knighthood precisely because his influence has been exerted in a sphere that cannot be measured; that he has transcended his sport and touched lives in a way that cannot be formulised; that he has had an impact upon the public consciousness in ways so subtle, but at the same time so powerful, that it is only after he has disappeared from our public space that we will fully comprehend the measure of his achievements.

The full scale of Beckham’s influence struck home during a conversation with John Amaechi last week. The former basketball star – who came out this year, the first NBA player to do so – made the startling observation that Beckham had made it easier for homosexuals to come out. “Beckham has made it possible to be a real man and gay,” Amaechi said. This from a 6ft 10in sportsman who understands how stereotypes – “all gays are pansies” – can stigmatise and blight lives and how counter-cultural icons can help to change all that.

Beckham has been the single most significant catalyst in the metrosexual revolution, changing the contemporary notion of masculinity, softening it, smoothing it, widening it, diversifying it. He has not only made it possible to be a real man and gay. He has also made it possible to be a real man and sensitive; to be a real man and concerned about one’s appearance; to be a real man and to cry in public; to be a real man and to wear dresses and high heels.

It is not only the sarong and the fact that he has embraced being an icon of the gay community. It is not only the fact that he wears earrings and his wife’s knickers. It is not only his palpable sensitivity and the fact that he is so visibly in touch with his feminine side. It is – much more importantly – about the things that can be measured only in the hearts and minds of those who have been confronted by his new slant on maleness. It is about the little things that have, in their way, helped us to embrace a new vision of tolerance.

Beckham has undergone so many personal reinventions and image changes that he is a walking tribute to cosmopolitanism. He is someone who would be as comfortable in Soho as in Solihull, someone who could as happily spend his day pumping weights as prancing around the shops of the fashion district, someone who is as revered by heterosexuals as by homosexuals. He is someone who has changed the face of masculinity – and not only with his moisturisers.

No British sportsman of the past half-century has exerted a more powerful or benign influence on Britain’s consciousness. While Blair was softening majority attitudes through the statute book – enacting civil partnerships, scrapping the “section 28” prohibition on promoting homosexuality in schools, equalising the age of consent, reclassifying cannabis, opening the doors to immigrants from Eastern Europe – Beckham was softening those same attitudes through the potency of his persona.

The fact that Beckham embraced the New Age philosophy instinctively – without the merest hint of political correctness – made it that much more powerful. Members of the British public have never taken to those who preach at them.

Many will pillory Beckham for having become the visible embodiment of a superficial celebrity culture – but this seems overly censorious. One can hardly blame the man for the obsession that he inspires in magazine and newspaper editors and their readers. Any criticism of Beckham’s superficiality reflects more upon those who gorge upon the tittle-tattle of his private life than upon the man himself. One ventures to suggest, indeed, that Beckham is a deep person; certainly someone who has handled fame and infamy with rare courage and grace.

A knighthood would have been an appropriate gift from the outgoing Prime Minister to a man who has symbolised the vast stride into modernity that has occurred over the past decade and that has left the nation more at ease with itself than ever.

Beckham was, in many ways, Blair’s soulmate: the New Man who was the cultural embodiment of Blair’s political liberality. To say that he has not won a World Cup winner’s medal is to miss the point. Rarely has a knighthood been more conspicuously merited.

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