Another new year means another New Year’s Honours list and that means that Britain’s medieval class system of monarchs, nobles and knights is alive and well. To some, the honours system seems a harmless preservation of tradition, a bit like Morris dancing or the re-enactment of long-forgotten battles.

However, preserving a system of social class based on inequality is hardly in keeping with current equality legislation, particularly since the selection process is completely secret and apparently uses only favouritism as its sole criterion.

Indeed the idea of someone becoming “ennobled” by having an unelected monarch touch them on the shoulder with a sword is not just plain silly, it is an insult to human intelligence.

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So what is the point in it all? Well,........

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