THE HONOURS LIST (2)

Another reason I dislike the Honours List is the lack of accountability for bad behaviour. You would expect people who have received honours, particularly the higher ones, to be - well - honourable in some sense. Yet when they are not honourable, nothing happens.

Lord Browne received a peerage for being the Chief Executive of B.P., Britain's largest company (it goes with the job). Some years ago, he sought to obtain a High Court injunction, preventing his former lover from revealing details of their relationship to a national newspaper. That application was rejected, after it turned out that he had lied in court. Lying in court is a pretty serious offence, and it did cost him his job. But he remains a peer of the realm.

Two other life peers, Lord Taylor and Lord Hanningfield, have been jailed for fiddling their Parliamentary expenses. Again, they will not lose their peerage.

Examples such as this merely bring the system into (further) disrepute. I rest my case.

Walter Blotscher