According to Downing Street, the prime minister is now backing a knighthood for Alan Bates. Bates’s 20-year campaign for justice for post office operators has finally got the recognition it deserves thanks to ITV’s extraordinarily consciousness-raising drama Mr Bates vs The Post Office. But why not offer him a peerage? It seems odd to think he would somehow fall short of a standard apparently cleared easily by Michelle Mone.
The obvious answer would seem to be that Mr Bates is not rich or parasitic enough, has never moved in the “right” circles, nor has he given enough money to a political party, ideally the governing Conservatives. (Boris Johnson alone appointed enough peers to account for 11% of the entire current House of Lords.) Furthermore, Alan Bates has not taken a penny for his decades of tireless labour, somehow failing to realise that you are supposed to get very rich doing something, and then receive an honour to say well done. Either that or you should assist Liz Truss in detonating the country’s economic stability.
