An honour is not without profit, except in my own country.
Michael Winner’s expertise is in self-publicity, and his presence in this thread demonstrates how his refusal of an honour has worked as he hoped it would.
Baronets’ titles are hereditary. That’s what distinguishes them from ordinary knights.
Considering all the crappy movies he’s made over the years, how the hell did he get on the list, anyway?
The only familiar names I spotted on the OBE list were Robbie Coltrane and Imelda Staunton.
Winner is the organiser of the Police Memorial Trust charity. That is why he was nominated , not for his crappy films.
OK… so, the lowest heredable title would be baronet?
Seems to be massively long list.
Just how many such people are ‘knighted’ in an average year?
And how many living knights/dames are there in the UK?
P.S. 18 of the 2006 Knighthoods were given “For service to Cricket”? Good Lord!
Winning UK national sports teams are often honoured in this way. Well, I say ‘often’, but as we’re dealing with British teams here, I should say ‘infrequently’… 
OB
:smack: I knew that. I don’t know why I said that. Maybe I was trying to say that baronets aren’t peers. They’re just hereditary knights.
:smack: I knew that. I don’t know why I said that. Maybe I was trying to say that baronets aren’t peers. They’re just hereditary knights.
Government departments will put some of their own civil servants up for them, too. Permanent Secretaries get a knighthood as a matter of course. Knighthoods, OBEs [‘Other Bugger’s Efforts’], MBEs [‘My Bloody Effort’] are not normally matters of political controversy. Peerages, however, not infrequently are. Some are political honours which don’t pretend to have any great merit and are given purely to ‘working peers’ doing the day-to-day business of legislating in the House of Lords. They are usually ex-Commons members who have lost their seat, or served long enough to get a consolation prize. Occasionally peerages are dangled in front of the sitting member to induce him to go quietly and let the party parachute its favoured candidate into the nomination for the seat.
It is normal for ex-Prime Ministers to be offered a peerage, though not all accept (Churchill didn’t). John Major and Edward Heath felt a K was enough for them.
“Kicked upstairs”
John Lennon returned his OBE in 1969 as a protest over the UK’s support for the Vietnam war.
And because “Cold Turkey” was not doing well on the charts.
And about the war in Biafra
It was the MBE
Strictly speaking, I don’t think baronets are considered truly noble either, though as Cunctator noted, they are inheritable. Maybe they’re sort of analogous to the position of Warrant Officers–they’re not quite Officers but they’re not Enlisted either.
acsenray, from what I’ve seen incorrectly using “Sir” (like for an MBE who isn’t a Knight), is rare. But in American journalism a black pit of error opens in this regard. Even in nationally respected dailies, you may see the error of Sir John Smith being referred to as “Sir Smith”.
That reminds me of a newpaper headline briefly glimpsed in The Great St.Trinians Train Robbery
St Trinians Awarded MBE
Thousands Send Back Their Medals; ‘A Diabolical Liberty’, Says Ringo
I agree this might be the case, although I don’t specifically recall any such instances. The rate of error grows when the person has an even more exalted title. Barons and earls get their titles screwed up all the time in U.S. news media (e.g., the “Earl of Spencer” instead of “Earl Spencer”). I once had to scramble to ensure that my newspaper would not refer to a “Princess Diana of Wales.”
As a minimum 4th-generation American, I can’t quite figure what’s wrong with that. It just sounds funny. What would the rule be?