National Virtue

Some righteous persons who have taken pats on the head from the school bully are campaigning for the master's hand to be clothed in a more anodyne glove. A Bangladesh-born mental health campaigner, having received a bauble from a government whose insouciant callousness and open racism are exceeded only by those of the present administration, does not now feel that the imperial aspect of her OBE resonates with her sense of integrity. She and her fellow enthusiasts for an Order of British Excellence appear to think that an exchange of the outdated for the merely vacuous would constitute some sort of improvement. It could certainly be argued that accepting trinkets and testimonials from a vicious government, while quibbling about the letter of the rah-rah, requires a thoroughly British sense of integrity.