A tin star and a punch in the face

The New Year Honours list is out. It's the usual list of royal flunkies, Ruperts, civil servants who've served their time, party donors, arms manufacturers (very few other industries get singled out) and Ministry of Defence spooks who get them seemingly for turning up to work - conspicuously badly -  ('grade C1, Ministry of Defence') leavened with a little stardust and a few lollipop ladies to make it look slightly less feudal, but it's basically the same as always.

One award caught my eye:

Mrs Rosemary Clarke, director, Bookstart Gifting Programmes, for serv education.

That's a 'thanks, but no thanks' if ever I saw one: the government has just decided that giving children's books to those households lacking them - to encourage literacy - is not the kind of thing it should be doing.