The New Year honours list has caused controversy because of awards to civil servants who appear from their career records to be undeserving and especially because of the knighthood given to the Tory election guru who directed for the party the successful campaign in May 2015. This was seen by many as divisive and negative and reliant upon the politics of fear. Whatever your view on the matter, there is no room for doubt on the substance. Politics is an occupation, it is over egging to call it a profession, which is so discredited, that almost the entire political class is seen as evasive, dishonest, self interested and incompetent. Fifteen million registered votes do not bother to actually vote.
The honours list is becoming tarnished with wear and tear, not least because it is run by the political establishment which clearly favours its own and rewards civil servants for toadyism more than for brilliance. There is now the whiff of sleaze beginning to waft around; a modern edition of the disease which did so much to kill the Major government and keep the Tories out of majority power for nearly twenty years. It is time to take stock because there are some very real heroines and heroes of out time who are on the list, and it is wrong that their honours should suffer devaluation because of the tawdry rewards of people who have done more harm than good.