Over the years I have known many people who have made it into the honours lists – those who, twice a year (New Year and the Queen’s Birthday) pick up Knighthoods, CBEs and assorted other gongs. Many of them are people we have worked with at the Adam Smith Institute, who have written things for us or spoken at our lunches, seminars, and conferences.

This year’s New Year honours list has been published and although it contains many names I have heard of, it contains just a handful whom I can say that I know, or have met. So I took a closer look at the list in order to work out why that should be.

I think the answer lies in the massive recent expansion of the public sector. Sure, there are a smattering of sports and entertainment personalities which politicians put in to spice up the lists and grab the media headlines. And I don’t object to giving honours to public servants – it is a good way, and a cheap one, to keep their hands out of the till. But the sheer number of civil servants, quango-crats, regulators, tsars, task-force chairs, advisers and other ‘big tent’ residents who now expect (and receive) honours seems to be squeezing out the entrepreneurs, thinkers, and other genuinely interesting people who used to appear now and again.

The list already covers two pages in the newspapers (I’ve stopped reading any further down than the CBEs), so it can hardly be expanded further. So once again, in a rather strange way, the public sector crowds out the private. Story of our lives, really.

From Adam Smith Institute

Tags: Libertarian, Politics, Liberty, Freedom