Why are the heroes from Grenfell Tower, Manchester and London Bridge not on the New Year Honours list?

Not a single fireman or woman, police officer, paramedic, hospital worker, or any civilian caught up in these horrifying events has been honoured

You would think, wouldn’t you, that after the year the country and the Government has been through – terrorism, the tragedy at Grenfell Tower, a disastrous and unnecessary general election, Brexit – that ministers and civil servants might have learnt a few hard truths about listening and responding to public sentiment. You’d imagine, too, that they’d follow up their ritual declarations over the past 12 months about the dedication and bravery of the emergency services with something a little more formal and tangible. But no. Like some ancient self-entitled dynasty, they have learnt nothing and remain insensible to the public mood.

So it is, then, that in the New Year Honours list not a single fireman or woman, police officer, paramedic, hospital worker, or any civilian caught up in these horrifying events has been honoured for their involvement in rescuing, comforting and treating the poor souls traumatised by what they went through. Nothing. Nothing for policeman Wayne Marques who swung at terrorists in the Borough Market attack with his arms and truncheon despite temporarily losing sight in one eye when he was stabbed in the head. Nothing for Chris Parker or Stephen Jones, homeless men who stayed and comforted the dying at Manchester Arena. Nothing for Dr Malcolm Tunnicliff or his team at King’s College Hospital in London who worked through the night to treat a dozen victims of the Grenfell fire. It beggars belief. There are police officers, such as Craig Mackey, involved in terrorism attack responses being awarded, but not because of their role in the incidents.

It was always a vain hope that this unnaturally stingy administration would offer them some sort of substantial financial bonus to recognise their contribution. Traditionally that doesn’t happen, though there’s nothing stopping Parliament authorising such spending; but traditionally suitable honours would be awarded instead of cold cash. It is an astonishing act of insensitivity, and at a time when so much is being asked of the public services generally, to see them get nothing, when so many time-serving MPs will get their gongs over the coming months for, frankly, nothing much more dangerous than eating in the Commons canteen.

We’re told by the PR flunkies that the reason for the absence of nominations relating to the terror attacks in London and Manchester, or the Grenfell disaster, is because it takes time for such nominations to come through the system and they will be noted next year. That is a pathetic piece of spin, bureaucracy, as ever, hiding behind procedure. After all, they managed, because they had no choice, to honour PC Keith Palmer, who was stabbed to death in the Westminster attack, with the George Medal. Maybe if he’d survived he too would have got nothing, and be told to wait until next year.

Normally, like most people, I can’t get that worked up about the harmless Ruritanian traditions of the British honours system, with its antique orders and absurd gradations of rank. I don’t, for example, begrudge John Anthony Denton, “Yeoman Bed Goer, The Queen’s Body Guard of The Yeomen of The Guard”, being inducted into the Royal Victorian Order. Who would? He deserves a medal for having to tell people that’s his job title. Who am I to pass judgement on the CBE heading the way of Professor Ngaire Tui Woods, dean of the Blavatnik School of Government, Oxford University, for services to higher education and public policy? And of course, I am perfectly content that Hamish Dean, pipe major with the Huntly and District Pipe Band is seeing his musical work in Aberdeenshire duly celebrated with a British Empire Medal. Long may he skirl.

I have heroes too, who I am positively delighted to see recognised, such as Professor John Curtice, who has done more for opinion polling and the understanding of political science than anyone since Sir David Butler, and now gets his “K”. I even think Nick Clegg deserves his knighthood for putting country before party in 2010, though I know that is an unpopular view.

This year, though, for the first time I find myself just angered by the hypocrisy of the system. All through the year the Prime Minister has stood up in Parliament or at the aftermath of some mass murder or disaster and doled out the usual stuff about the debt we owe to dedicated public servants, how lessons will be learnt, something will be done, and all of that. Then, well, nothing much comes of it; no permanent homes for many survivors of the Grenfell fire months later; nothing more for the people who had to deal with the disaster; nothing, as yet, for officialdom to apologise for. If you want to understand why Britain has become more bitterly divided of late, you need do no more than have a flick through the honours list. It is, like the blackened hulk of the Grenfell Tower itself, a monument to a sickening hypocrisy.

The year has hardly begun, then, and Theresa May has delivered her first bungle of 2018. If there were prizes for incompetence…