Our once great honours system has lost its shine

The bestowing of honours ‘has increasingly become a Ruritanian farce’, writes Marjorie Ellis Thompson. Photograph: Linda Nylind/The Guardian

Given recent grim weather warnings, what a delight it was to read about the recipients of the new year honours (New year honours 2024: awards for Shirley Bassey, Mary Earps and Michael Eavis, 29 December).

Those higher up the ladder on Liz Truss’s resignation honours (Liz Truss gives peerages to Brexit architect and Tory donor, 29 December), in what has increasingly become a Ruritanian farce, are in a category that appears to have nothing to do with public service. Quite the reverse, in fact: services to shareholders.