The official announcement confirming London’s Mayor Genghis Khan’s knighthood was made yesterday, shedding light on what was already known as the worst-kept secret in Westminster.
Presumably for services to stabbing and street robberies, which have gone through the roof on his watch.
An article a few weeks back highlighted Genghis’ flaws when news of him becoming one of His Majesty’s Knights Bachelor first surfaced, so I won’t delve into those again here.
It’s anticipated he will arrive at the Palace in his pricey £350,000 armored Range Rover as the general public navigates congested 20mph zones, sparse cycle lanes, Low Traffic Neighbourhoods, and deals with packed buses and unreliable, dirty Tube trains.
A black cab driver told me in the run-up to Christmas that for every ten cabbies giving up the game in London, there are only two replacements coming through – largely because Khan has made this noble trade increasingly unattractive, thanks to his ridiculous road closures and manufactured traffic jams.Â
These days, it’s often quicker to walk, so why bother sitting in the back of a taxi watching the meter tick up while going nowhere fast?
Let’s hope his investiture is scheduled for one of those days when the streets ofLondon are turned into No-Go areas by anti-Semitic, terrorist-loving, pro-Palestinian/Hamas demonstrators.
It was officially announced yesterday that London Mayor Sadiq Khan will be receiving a knighthood
Former England manager Gareth Southgate is also getting the same honour
Anyway, enough about Genghis, for now. One or two other names leapt out at me from the latest Honours List.
To be perfectly honest, until yesterday I’d never heard of Andrew Haines OBE, soon to be ‘Sir’ Andrew. Turns out he’s the head of Network Rail, which obviously explains why he’s been keeping his head down.
Britain’s railways are a basket case, as anyone who has travelled on them over the festive season – or any other time of year, for that matter – can confirm.
As the Mail reported on Boxing Day, in 2024 trains were cancelled every 90 seconds. That’s a record 370,000 services fully or partly cancelled, according to official figures.
Or, to put it another way, 7.3 million passenger journeys were disrupted, the worst reliability performance for nine years.
So why is the boss of Network Rail getting a knighthood? Like Genghis Khan, it’s another reward for failure. Haines has already got an OBE. Isn’t that enough?
Then again, quite a few of the names on the list are men and women being upgraded from one honour to another.
Naturally, a fair few of them are civil servants or quangocrats, who already enjoy guaranteed salaries and gold-plated pensions which are far and above those enjoyed in much of the embattled private sector.
I shouldn’t be surprised to discover that some of them are getting gongs for services to Working From Home.
Or Working From The Beach, as we revealed yesterday. Laugh Out Loud moment
came when I read that Emily Thornberry was being made a Dame. Yes, that Emily Thornberry, the Corbynista Labour MP best known for sneering at a White Van Man flying the Cross of St George outside his house in Rochester, Kent, in 2014.
She was forced to resign from the Shadow Cabinet after being accused of holding working-class voters in contempt.
But she bounced back under Magic Grandpa and now Starmer, her fellow member of the snobbish Inner North London ‘elite’, has given her a damehood – the female equivalent of a knighthood.
But here’s what baffles me. Thornberry is already a Lady –Lady Nugee – by marriage. Why does she need another title?
After all, it’s not as if she’s had a particularly distinguished political career.
So what do we call her now – Dame Lady Nugee? Lady Dame Thornberry? That would make her sound like Lady Day, the great jazz singer Billie Holiday. And, as her disdain for working-class patriotism illustrates, she ain’t nothing like a Dame.
Still, these self-styled socialists do like a grand title. Look what I was saying about ‘Lord’ Mandelson, our new ambassador to the US, in my last column. Judging by your reaction, it appears you agree with me about Mandelson.Â
It’s not fair to say I’ve never had a good word for him. I can think of lots of good words to describe Mandelson, but few of them are printable in a family newspaper.
However, I have always thought he’d make someone a decent butler, provided they remembered to count the silver spoons after every meal.
Oh, and speaking of rewards for failure, Gareth Southgate is getting a K too. Seems like a nice boy, but he’s already got an OBE – which is about as good as England got under his management. Close but no World Cup, or European Championship.
Other footballing knights, Sir Alf Ramsay, Sir Bobby Moore and Sir Alex Ferguson, actually won things.
Having said that, I’ve never understood why a successful sportsman or athlete would want an honour handed out by a politician hoping some of the glory will rub off on him.
I can’t imagine that getting a knighthood or a CBE beats winning Olympic gold or lifting the World Cup.
Look, I’m not against the honours system in principle, just the way it works. The top gongs always go to politicians, civil servants or those at the pinnacle of their professions, often simply for doing the jobs for which they are already handsomely rewarded.
Nor do I understand why there have to be different levels. Left to me, I’d have just one award – a Medal of Honour, say – to be given to everyone who deserves recognition, from selfless community volunteers to entertainers dedicated to what the author Arnold Bennett described as the great cause of cheering us all up.
For instance, Stephen Fry is to become ‘Sir’ Stephen, not for his TV career but for his work on behalf of mental health charities. I have no problem with that.
We should honour those who have added greatly to the gaiety and well-being of the nation.
But that doesn’t include ‘Lady Dame’ Thornberry, nor the head of dysfunctional Network Rail, and certainly not ‘Sir’ Genghis Khan, the World’s Worst Mayor of London.
Happy New Year!
