New Year Honours: Whitty, Van-Tam and Blair knighted, Lumley and Redgrave made dames

General Chat In The News
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Prof Chris Whitty and Prof Jonathan Van-Tam, who became household names during the Covid-19 pandemic, have been knighted in the New Year Honours list. Dr Jenny Harries, chief executive of the UK Health Security Agency, and Dr June Raine, head of the vaccines regulator MHRA, are both made dames.

And Tony Blair is knighted, being appointed to the Order of the Garter.

On the main list, actresses Joanna Lumley and Vanessa Redgrave are made dames.

In sport, husband and wife Jason and Laura Kenny are made a knight and a dame for services to cycling, while Jody Cundy - who has won multiple Paralympic golds in swimming and cycling - is appointed CBE.

Tom Daley, who won Olympic gold in Tokyo in the summer, is appointed OBE for services to “diving, LGBTQ+ rights and charity”. His diving partner and fellow gold medallist, Matty Lee, gets an MBE.

Swimmer Adam Peaty and gymnast Max Whitlock also become OBEs, while shock US Open winner Emma Raducanu is appointed MBE.

Journalist Trevor Phillips is knighted for services to equality and human rights while “Money Saving Expert” Martin Lewis is appointed CBE for services to broadcasting and consumer rights.

June Brown - the 94-year-old actress who played Dot Cotton in EastEnders - is appointed OBE, as is Coronation Street actor Bill Roache, who plays Ken Barlow.

Katie Piper is appointed OBE for her work with burns victims; Kate Garraway is made an MBE for services to broadcasting, journalism, and charity; and Spice Girl Melanie Brown is appointed MBE for her work with vulnerable women.

The two highest honours go to the former Labour MP for Birkenhead, Lord Field, and Nobel Prize-winning geneticist Sir Paul Nurse. They become Companions of Honour, where membership is limited to 65 people.

Actor Daniel Craig is made a companion of the Order of St Michael and St George, for services to film and theatre. It is generally awarded for work in a foreign country - James Bond, who Craig plays in the film franchise, was fictionally given the same honour.

Meanwhile, 12-year-old Max Woosey - who has slept in a tent for more than 600 nights in a row to raise £700,000 (and counting) for North Devon Hospice - is awarded a British Empire Medal.

And Tobias Weller - an 11-year-old with cerebral palsy and autism - is also given a BEM for his charity fundraising. Although children have won BEMs before, Tobias is thought to be the youngest ever recipient.

The oldest person on this year’s list is 102-year-old magician Henry Lewis from London, appointed MBE for his work with the Magic Circle.

In total, more than 1,200 people are on the main UK New Year Honours list, which ranges from the Companion of Honour and the Order of the Bath, through knighthoods and damehoods, to CBEs, OBEs, MBEs, and the BEM - read more about the system here.

In total, 15.1% of recipients are from an ethnic minority background, which the government said made it “for the fourth time running, the most ethnically diverse honours list to date”. In total, 47.9% of recipients are women.

There are more, lots more … follow the link.

Many awards are deserved but appointing Tony Blair a Knight is an outrage and a blot on HM’s copybook … :angry:

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She made her useless son Andrew a Knight of the Garter and has just made cami one too . Queenie lives in another world .

Tony Blair wasn’t all bad he was in many ways an excellent PM had it not been for the disastrous Iraqi war he would have been remembered as a statesman.

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Giving Tony Blair such a high honour only confirms how out of touch with reality the honour system is.
To knight a war criminal ranks almost as high as giving a Noble prize to newly elected president that increased drone attacks.

The blood of over one million Iraqi civilians is on his hands.
Would have respected him if he stood up to Bush then and him told him, sorry, your foreign policy agenda is wrong. 911 the terrorists were Saudi born not Iraqi, Iraq had no WMD at that time, but being a lawyer by trade what did you expect…lies…lies…

Remember him beating his chest in Parliament that Iraq could attack us in 45 minutes with WMD. More lies…

Expecting to see Harold Shipman added soon for his work with the elderly and Fred and Rose West on their work with young people.

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Could have been worse - could have included Beckham and his sour faced wife!

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Hasn’t he been begging for one for years, and then threw a hissy fit when his name wasn’t on the list? What have the Beckhams actually done anyway? :woman_shrugging:

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Blair forgot this. :grinning:

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Our Chief Medical Officer, Gregor Smith, is being made into a knight (in shining armour). Good for him…rather that than his counterpart Jason Leitch

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Up here in Scotland being a staunch SNP supporter is an absolute must and Professor Linda Bauld was an excellent example. For quite sometime I beleived that the only medical advisor we had up here was the professor as she was the only one interviewed guarenteeing that nothing detrimental was said about the Scottish Governments handling of the crisis.

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I am not a fan of Tony Blair but he is not a war criminal . The decision to invade Iraq was passed with the support of both Houses of Parliament. so he was not alone in being at fault .

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And yet we still vote for liars, there’s one in no 10 now…

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The buck stops at the Prime Minister and the evidence that was presented to Parliament was a tissue of lies not forgetting is all to cosy support for Bush who wanted a war to get rid of Sadam Hussien, lets not for get his very dodgy deals with the Saudis.

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And the alternative would be what exactly, not voting at all because it really does not matter who is in government when it comes to honesty?

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I have for the last few years voted for the party least likely to succeed ie greens or some other obscure no hoper.
I will never vote conservative and there is no viable opposition .

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Blair should be in jail.

As for Whitty Van Tam and rest of the propagandists they should follow him.

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The Greens up here in Scotland have proved they are no better than the main paties when it comes to power and have propped up the SNP for a couple of token positions in government.

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So should bull …….s on social forums but there you are ….:slight_smile:

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The first think I looked for this morning was a thread on the New Year’s honours list and, predictably, here it is!

The outstanding example of unwarranted awards this morning is, of course, Tony B Liar, the war criminal. At least one reader in The Telegraph suggested that the reason he had not received an award for murder before now was the influence of Prince Philip, who had more common sense than the entire Houses of Parliament collectively.

So, who’s going to benefit for the award for their ‘good work’ next year, I wonder. Treason May? Bunter? This country, of which I was once so very proud, has lost its way and to be honest I cannot see any real future for it.

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Oh, my decision is final - already. May and Boris have both lied to us and failed to honour the Brexit vote, so no Conservative vote from me despite having voted for them for all these years.
Obviously, there is no point voting for Labour, Liberals or Greens.
Only one party left worth voting for. Sadly, although many people say they will vote for them, in reality I’m afraid most people back down at the last minute.
But I shall not.

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Who might they be unless you are in Scotland when I assume it would be the SNP who are really no better than the Tories?

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The ones I have been sounding off about for some time now - the true Conservatives to replace the Green-Liberals presently in government: Reform UK.

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