The Curmudgeon

I have in the past had cause to make the occasional critical remark about today's TV: I remember the days when programmes like Panorama and This Week did proper stories.

So when Mr Snow, of Channel Four news, did a documentary two weeks ago about the honours system, Mrs C and I taped and promptly forgot it.

We assumed that it was going to about so-called "celebs" getting gongs (ie a knighthood for Mick Jagger for outstanding services to sex, drugs and rock 'n' roll).

Well, it rained one day this week and, with nowt on telly except sport, we had a look at the tape. And - surprise, surprise - here was young Jonathan doing a proper piece of journalism.

You see, it wasn't so much about the people who get gongs but rather about those who don't: ie the huge majority of folk who work quite selflessly for the public good, year in, year out, and never get as much as a "Ta very much" never mind a medal.

And the reason for this, kiddiewinks, is that people are recommended for the honours lists by (yes, you've guessed) civil servants.

They are either Whitehall mandarins, who have never met a real person, or local government officials, who spend their time hiding from the same in case they should complain about local services (or the lack of therein).

And, surprise, surprise, it appears that approximately a fifth of all honours at the highest levels (knighthoods and the like) go to ... senior civil servants. At your lower level, your OBEs and MBEs, many of them go to local authority workers or councillors.

When it comes to the real icing on the cake, the peerages which entitle recipients to sit in the House of Lords (and draw some handsome expenses for doing so) herewith another spell-binding revelation.

At the top of the list are politicians, often MPs past their sell-by-date, who are moved onwards and upwards so that their safe House of Commons seats can be given to bright young thing, who might (or might not) bring some new thinking into the Palace of Westminster.

So it is perhaps not surprising that, once again, Mrs C and I are missing.

Had I known how the system worked, I would have been buttering up to the politicians, civil servants and councillors for years, saying what a lovely job they do in putting their own lives on hold whilst they struggle ceaselessly for the public good.

But that still doesn't explain why the Vicar and the Doc, who have devoted their entire working lives to making life a little better for the good folk of Beggarsdale, have never had a smidgeon of recognition.

Both have worked for next to nowt, money-wise.

All right, the Doc doesn't starve, but if you worked out his hourly rate for being on call 24 hours a day, 50 weeks a year (he does take one holiday!), he'd probably be better off on a supermarket checkout.

And as for the Vicar, whose very pension is under threat thanks to the fiscal stupidity of the Church Commissioners, he would be better off cleaning the Mar'ton public loos than cleansing his flock's souls.

These are just two of a dozen I could name worthy of official honours. I wonder if any of the people who do get on the list for sitting on their bums ever feel a sense of shame at robbing a worthier recipient?

* The Curmudgeon is a satirical column based on a fictitious character in a mythical village.