Paula Vennells handing back her CBE doesn't get remotely close to accountability. Many won't feel a sense of closure until she's aggressively prosecuted and languishes in a prison cell for the rest of her years. I'm actually surprised at the restraint shown by ITV in her depiction, because in real life she bears many of the hallmarks of a cartoon villain.
I agree with the sentiment, but it's important to add that this should only happen if it's proven to the criminal standard of proof, in a court room, that she was complicit.
the legal responsibility of a director is different. she is accountable (along with other senior directors) for issues caused by the company
"A director can be found to be personally liable for a company offence if they consented or connived in an illegal activity, or caused it through neglect of their duties."
Which isn't even legally permissible, there is no way to 'give it back' (although you could stop using the title) - it can only be taken from you, which has to be done by the king on recommendation of the prime minister.
Yeah, that's what I thought. Her promise to return the "honour" looks to me like an attempt to avoid having it seized off her.
These "honours" (knighthoods, peerages etc.) should now be referred to as "disgraces". Liz Truss handed out an honour for roughly each four days of her incumbency as Prime Minister, nearly all to crazies from the extreme right of the Conservative Party. We already have way more peers than can actually be stuffed into the House Of Lords.
Not to mention that “Owen” woman who nobody seems to know anything about but is this spitting image of his ex-wife and has that trademark Johnson shade of hair.
I can't think of an instance when it's been given back. You get a notification that you're being considered for an honour; if you're going to turn it down, you do it at that stage, before it's been conferred.
For someone not familiar with the acronym, what is CBE?
A quick search shows me 371 different matching acronyms, ranging from the "Calgary Board of Education", to "current best estimate", to "Central Bank of Egypt".
"CBE" refers to Commander of the most excellent order of the British Empire [0] which is a title conferred by the monarch on those deemed to have performed especially well in the service of the nation.
So you can see how its value might be diluted by this instance.
Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE)
This is awarded for having a prominent but lesser role at national level, or a leading role at regional level. You can also get one for a distinguished, innovative contribution to any area.
https://www.gov.uk/honours/types-of-honours-and-awards
It's not just that. "of" and "the" are often omitted from initialisms, possibly as a lingering effect of, and false transferral of the conventions from, Latin where "of" is just the genitive case and "the" does not exist.
"Rolling on the floor laughing" should properly be "ROTFL" but usually is "ROFL", and that example is nothing to do with Britain or the honours system. "Member of Parliament" is "MP" not "MOP". "Batchelor of Science" is not "BOSc." but is "BSc.". And so on.
I suspect that "Lord of the Rings" is only "LOTR" because the sort of people who use "ROTFL" are the sort of people who even read the appendices to Tolkein and got there first. (-:
To be fair they are slowly making their institutions conform to a more democratic outlook.
For example, their Supreme Court finally moved out of the House of Lords in 2009... (so much for "separation of powers" before that, even though they were joined only in name...)
But contrast the situation of the United State of America, whose "Supreme Court" rather than an independent institution is in fact filled with partisan hacks to such an extent that it appears many on the Right felt that it was worth the obvious downsides of Donald Trump as President to get more Supreme Court justices.
Even the Law Lords (as they were typically called when the exact same body existed as notionally part of the House of Lords prior to becoming the UK's Supreme Court) were way more independent than that. A Government minister can say "No" to the pick of the committee which independently chooses candidates for this job, but they can't pick for themselves, the committee can just give them the same name again until (inevitably) the minister gets replaced with one who doesn't say "No".
It would in theory be easier for a British government to abolish their Supreme Court than for the US government, but in reality in both cases it would cause a constitutional crisis. The UK is quite capable of having a constitutional crisis, you don't need to write your constitution down to do that, but it isn't very likely.
I bet Paula Vennells is lying about that. It sounds like some kind of PR statement to deal with the petition getting over a million votes to strip her of her honour.
Not really. It's shiny. It's like a real life ding/chievo/whatever you call them these days.
It's important enough that you can write it on like headed notepaper without seeming like a complete jerk. If I see somebody sent me a letter from "A Smith CBE" that seems reasonable I guess they have a CBE, how about that - if they write "A Smith BA(Hons)" I know they're a terrible person - who cares that you have a fucking undergraduate degree? Am I supposed to be impressed?
One more notch up makes you a knight. So, if you're collecting and this is early in your career that's a good sign you could get there. For example when I was a research student 20+ years ago, my Head of Department was looking to get herself some Honours, and these days she's Dame Wendy.
But like, it doesn't come with a heap of money or anything as far as I know. You briefly get to meet Charlie I guess, but I met his previous wife once (when I was a kid) and she was just some woman, so I doubt he's any different.
