George Pitcher: Does Tony Blair deserve a medal?
[George Pitcher is Religion Editor of The Daily Telegraph.]
Two stories about unwanted honours tell us much, not just about the reluctant recipients, but also about what it means to be great and good – and what it means not to be so great at all.
Both gongs were bestowed on guitar heroes who became obsessed with world peace, but whose careers took very different directions. The first is the MBE that was awarded in 1965 to John Lennon, vocalist and strummer with The Beatles, which has just been revealed in a vault at St James's Palace, where it has lain since the ill-fated mop-top returned it in protest in 1969.
The second is a Congressional Gold Medal of Honour, which was awarded by the US Congress in 2003 in the wake of the Iraq adventure, but which curiously still awaits collection by Tony Blair, former vocalist and guitarist with Ugly Rumours, a slightly less well-known band.
But this shy hero can no longer dodge being honoured; next Tuesday Blair will travel to Washington DC to collect a different award from a grateful American people. Well, a grateful American president, anyway. Mr Blair will receive The Medal of Freedom, one of America's highest civilian honours, from outgoing President George W. Bush, for his unwavering support of the United States in the prosecution of its war against an abstract noun. The Congressional Gold will remain uncollected.
So how will Mr Blair feel next Tuesday? Sheepish? Will he shift from foot to foot like a Victor Ludorum at Sports Day who wants to get back to his cooler mates? Will he hope that no one is watching as he is lauded by America's outgoing and discredited old regime, as the new, cool president-elect waits contemptuously in the wings, the kind of messianic figure that Blair once imagined he was?
America's old conservative Establishment will doubtless extend any discomfort he feels, applauding him long and loud to the stuccoed dome. Few, after all, have been awarded both the Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Those who have include Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in whose company Blair these days might feel more comfortable. Also Walt Disney and John Wayne, which could make them either Mickey Mouse medals or the equivalents of a Dukedom, depending on where you stand on American popular culture.
But I want to dwell for a moment on a comparison between the two long-haired and idealistic guitarists of the Sixties. Which of the pair – Blair or Lennon – talked more about world peace and did least to achieve it? It's a tough call. Lennon wrote some catchy songs about it and went to bed for a week in an Amsterdam hotel in a bid to achieve it.
Blair has delivered some catchy speeches on the subject, but there will be those who wish he had spent rather more time in bed with Cherie in a love-in for world peace than in the snug with Bush. He may be Peace Envoy to the Middle-East, but it's difficult to see how the situation in Gaza could have been worse had he stayed in bed.
It's when he had a proper job, of course, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, that he won his American medals, standing shoulder to shoulder with Bush as he bombed Iraq for harbouring weapons of mass destruction that weren't there.
For this, Blair will be honoured next week for making "America and the world community a safer and more secure place". His people are already speaking of this "great honour" which "reflects the true courage of the men and women of the Armed Forces." Right. Tell it to the Marines, as they say in the States...
Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)
Two stories about unwanted honours tell us much, not just about the reluctant recipients, but also about what it means to be great and good – and what it means not to be so great at all.
Both gongs were bestowed on guitar heroes who became obsessed with world peace, but whose careers took very different directions. The first is the MBE that was awarded in 1965 to John Lennon, vocalist and strummer with The Beatles, which has just been revealed in a vault at St James's Palace, where it has lain since the ill-fated mop-top returned it in protest in 1969.
The second is a Congressional Gold Medal of Honour, which was awarded by the US Congress in 2003 in the wake of the Iraq adventure, but which curiously still awaits collection by Tony Blair, former vocalist and guitarist with Ugly Rumours, a slightly less well-known band.
But this shy hero can no longer dodge being honoured; next Tuesday Blair will travel to Washington DC to collect a different award from a grateful American people. Well, a grateful American president, anyway. Mr Blair will receive The Medal of Freedom, one of America's highest civilian honours, from outgoing President George W. Bush, for his unwavering support of the United States in the prosecution of its war against an abstract noun. The Congressional Gold will remain uncollected.
So how will Mr Blair feel next Tuesday? Sheepish? Will he shift from foot to foot like a Victor Ludorum at Sports Day who wants to get back to his cooler mates? Will he hope that no one is watching as he is lauded by America's outgoing and discredited old regime, as the new, cool president-elect waits contemptuously in the wings, the kind of messianic figure that Blair once imagined he was?
America's old conservative Establishment will doubtless extend any discomfort he feels, applauding him long and loud to the stuccoed dome. Few, after all, have been awarded both the Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal. Those who have include Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa of Calcutta, in whose company Blair these days might feel more comfortable. Also Walt Disney and John Wayne, which could make them either Mickey Mouse medals or the equivalents of a Dukedom, depending on where you stand on American popular culture.
But I want to dwell for a moment on a comparison between the two long-haired and idealistic guitarists of the Sixties. Which of the pair – Blair or Lennon – talked more about world peace and did least to achieve it? It's a tough call. Lennon wrote some catchy songs about it and went to bed for a week in an Amsterdam hotel in a bid to achieve it.
Blair has delivered some catchy speeches on the subject, but there will be those who wish he had spent rather more time in bed with Cherie in a love-in for world peace than in the snug with Bush. He may be Peace Envoy to the Middle-East, but it's difficult to see how the situation in Gaza could have been worse had he stayed in bed.
It's when he had a proper job, of course, as Prime Minister of Great Britain, that he won his American medals, standing shoulder to shoulder with Bush as he bombed Iraq for harbouring weapons of mass destruction that weren't there.
For this, Blair will be honoured next week for making "America and the world community a safer and more secure place". His people are already speaking of this "great honour" which "reflects the true courage of the men and women of the Armed Forces." Right. Tell it to the Marines, as they say in the States...