There’s a line I’ve thought about on and off for the best part of a decade but never had reason to share – until now. Back in 2015, the French economist and author of the best-selling Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Thomas Piketty, revealed he had turned down the Légion d’honneur. His reasoning? “I do not think it is the government’s role to decide who is honourable.”
But that’s not the quote I remember. That dubious honour belongs to Tanya Gold, who remarked:
“Declining honours is the new receiving honours; why take one when you can be doubly honoured — for being honoured and for being so honourable as to be above honour?”
I’m not speaking from experience, but I’m pretty sure it is considered poor form to publicly decline an honour in the UK. As I understand it, the King (or perhaps a junior cabinet office official) calls you up and asks if you’d be interested in a gong of some sort. Only sometime after you agree does it become public.
I was thinking about this after Matt Dathan reported in The Times that two of the 16 people included in two-time Prime Minister of the Month winner Liz Truss’s resignation honours list had turned down the nomination, albeit privately. According to Dathan, one said it would be “humiliating” to receive an honour from such a short-lived leader, the other that they did not deserve it.
There is perhaps one exception to this rule: Oliver Cromwell. Already head of state and head of government as Lord Protector, Cromwell was offered the crown by Parliament in 1657. He declined, on the basis that, having spent much of the previous decade fighting the monarchy, and already enjoying the status of de facto king, he need not take on the formal title. Or, in his words, “build Jericho again.” The Stuart Restoration took place three years later.
In the comment pages, Anne McElvoy declares Jeremy Corbyn to be back, and suggests he has much in common with Nigel Farage. Nimco Ali says never in her fight against FGM has she seen a penny of UK aid money save one girl. While Claudia Cockerell says Matt Hancock is giving her the IckTok.
And finally, is Hackney the new Clapham? Alexandra Jones (reformed northerner and self-acknowledged snob) answers the question in a way I’m confident will offend no one.
