A Spectator's Notebook
THE HONOURS LISTS have become as hazardous to their organisers as giving a party. Just as people who are not asked to parties are irritated more than those who are invited arc pleased, so Honours Lists always draw criticism rather than praise. It must be admitted, however, that in one respect at least this year's list almost invited criti- cism. And it got it. The Chronicle, Express, Mail, Mirror, Herald, Sketch and Worker were unani- mous in complaining that the wizard of 'dribble, Stanley Matthews, had been fobbed off with the CBE instead of being given a knighthood. Mr. Cecil Beaton, Mr. Lennox Berkeley, Mr. Basil Cameron and Mr. Robert Morley, amongst others, also received the CBE, so Mr. Matthews was unquestionably in good company. I am myself rather doubtful if much is gained by con- ferring titles and decorations upon the leaders of sport and the stage. Such people are by definition successful and live very much in the public eye. But once the precedent had been set of giving knighthoods to, say, Sir Gordon Richards, Sir Len Hutton and Sir John Gielgud, and a DBE to Miss Margot Fonteyn, I can see no conceivable excuse for not following it in the case of Mr. Matthews, who is every bit as pre-eminent in his sphere as those mentioned above -are or were in theirs. I shOuld have thought the best argument for such honours was that they conferred recog- nition on the activity concerned and were a sort of vicarious award to its,atidiences or supporters. Football is, with dog-racing, the sport most con- spicuously lacking distinguished patronage, and.it is also the most popular. Logically, therefore, if Mr. Matthews was going to be treated differently from Sir Gordon and Co., he should have been given not a CBE but a peerage.
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