CONQUEST'S MEDAL

Good news. Robert Conquest, subject of a post last week, has been awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom. (You'll have to dig deep into this Reuters dispatch to find his name in the list, but it's there all the same.) Britain has already given him a CMG (known to the great and the good as "Call Me God"), but he really deserves better than that, especially when you consider that the wretched Eric Hobsbawm is a Companion of Honour. (Tony Blair, what were you thinking?) Conquest deserves, what, six dukedoms and the key to Buckingham Palace? At the very least.

UPDATE: Here's the official White House announcement.

Comments

[Tim Worstall]

Tsk, tsk.

The Maximum Tone can upgrade the CMG, certainly, as he ought to. But the CH is strictly QE II as are the OM and KG.

N’est pas?

[JamesB]

Tim's right. You can add the OT (Order of the Thistle) and the (now-defunct) Order of St Patrick to the list too.

Still doesn't explain why Hobsbawm was awarded the CH. His books were required reading on my course: they became known collectively as "The Ages of Tedium".

[JamesB]

Tim's right. You can add the OT (Order of the Thistle) and the (now-defunct) Order of St Patrick to the list too.

Still doesn't explain why Hobsbawm was awarded the CH. His books were required reading on my course: they became known collectively as "The Ages of Tedium".