I agree with the Daily Mail. I had better repeat that in case you think you have misread it: I agree with the Daily Mail.
Its assault on the honours system this week has been first class, echoing the Guardian’s disgust, which it expressed in a fine leading article on Monday.
Over four days, the Mail has devoted three front pages, three editorials and a damning op-ed piece to David Cameron’s ill-advised resignation awards.
And its argument has been compelling every time, again in line with the Guardian. Rarely, do the two newspapers agree - but, despite their political differences, this matter unites them.
Both have used similar descriptions in their trenchant criticisms of the system: devalued, debased, discredited, egregious, grubby, tawdry, tainted, tarnished. Both have referred to Cameron’s “chumocracy.” Both have pointed to the absurdity of giving awards to Samantha Cameron’s stylist and other assorted hangers-on.
The Guardian has made more of its opposition to gongs for donors, while the Mail has made more of a case against rewarding those who advocated remain in the EU referendum, particularly Labour’s Will Straw.
But, essentially, they are on the same page: this is a system that stinks. It may have improved, as Michael White has argued, but I cannot agree that Britain in 2016 needs an honours system.
And even if we do have to have one, there is no need for selection to be so opaque, a key reason for the system having long been in public disrepute.
In the Guardian’s phrase, “too many awards appear to be at best irrelevant baubles, at worst egregious favours, serving more to divide than to unite us.”
And who can argue with the Mail’s further point about the upper chamber? “The House of Lords has become an embarrassment. Stuffed to the gunwales with cronies and dodgy donors, it is already the world’s largest legislative chamber outside China.”
It is heartening, is it not, to see the Mail and Guardian singing from the same hymn sheet.
