An honours system for those who fight to make Britain a better place | Owen Jones

The Guardian 1 February 2012


Poor old martyred Mr Fred Goodwin. According to ex-CBI supremo Lord Digby Jones, this latter-day Joan of Arc is the victim of a "lynch mob" mentality. Quite right: it's the unemployed and poor who are supposed to get a kicking from the tabloids, not multimillionaire pillars of the establishment. Has the world gone mad?

But now the poor bloke has had his knighthood shredded, it's a good time to rethink the whole honours system. For a start, handing out "Orders of the British Empire" strikes me as more than a little tasteless in the first place. Poet Benjamin Zephaniah turned down his OBE nearly a decade ago because "it reminds me of how my foremothers were raped and my forefathers brutalised". He has a point: as a country we're far from coming to terms with the barbarity of empire. As Mike Davis points out in the seminal Late Victorian Holocausts, millions of Indians starved to death in unnecessary famines under British rule. It is surely possible to recognise achievements without celebrating this murderous era.

It's not just the name that's the problem, though. These days, we barely even blink at the fact honours are routinely handed out by prime ministers to their mates or to establishment patsies. Sometimes it appears that contributions to party coffers – rather than to society – is the way to go about getting a knighthood. I'm sure we can all be proud of hedge fund manager Paul Ruddock being knighted this year for his inspiring contribution to British society: most notably, making £100m out of the collapse of Northern Rock, and depositing £500,000 in Tory party bank accounts since 2003.

Those who have actually made contributions to society generally end up with the bargain basement honour, the MBE. I'm pretty confident that Maureen Adams, handed an MBE this year for dedicating her career to helping those affected by HIV/Aids, has had more of a positive net impact on society than, say, Centrica chairman Roger Carr, who was knighted last year after prices were raised by 7% just as winter approached.

So let's ditch the whole system and start from scratch. This morning, the BBC's Evan Davis proposed that, if he ran the system, "honours would go to people whose material compensation vastly under-rewards them for their achievements". That's a great place to start, although those that society depends on to function and who often scrape by on poverty wages should, of course, be paid properly, too.

But if we're going to have honours, they should surely reflect people's social worth. The New Economics Foundation found that for every £1 a hospital cleaner is paid, £10 of social value is created. City bankers, on the other hand, destroyed £7 for every £1 they created. But who is more likely to be honoured as things stand?

So here's my suggestion. Instead of knighthoods for wealthy parasites, let's have a new honour, which could be called Pillars of Society. The title would be pretty self-explanatory. Establishment types would be barred; let's stop celebrating wealth and power for the sake of it. Instead, let's start by recognising the efforts of those increasingly demonised as "vested public sector interests" who "leach off the taxpayer": like nurses, refuse collectors, lollipop ladies, teachers, and so on.

There's a whole host of other Pillars of Society, too: community workers; activists who dedicate their lives to fighting racism, sexism and homophobia; trade union reps who fight the corner of workers in the workplace; those who fight for the sick and disabled; volunteers and charity workers; and those who show great bravery or commit great sacrifices for others.

Instead of starting every year with a roll-call of millionaires, senior civil servants and royal servants, we'd have an inspiring insight into the best British society has to offer. It would provide a much-needed platform for those we all depend on, but who are normally marginalised or completely ignored.

Of course, such an honours system would mean challenging the way we look at society. Rather than venerating the well-heeled and well-connected, we'd be more interested in championing working people and those who fight to make Britain a better place.

Oh, and I'd like to get the ball rolling by nominating my Pillar of Society: Helena Button, who was an inspiring primary school teacher. Let's hear your nominations.