Why is racist Jim Ratcliffe a knight and clueless John Redwood a lord?

Norman Bettison is still a Sir, despite an Independent Office for Police Conduct report released last December that found he, along with 11 other retired police officers, would have faced gross misconduct proceedings under today’s laws over the Hillsborough disaster. Philip Green remains a knight despite his conduct during the collapse of BHS and his attempt last year to use the European Court of Human Rights to put new controls on free speech in Parliament.

Doubtless Jim Ratcliffe, toxic boss of chemical company Ineos and co-owner of Manchester United, will keep his own knighthood despite racist remarks made in a Sky News interview on Wednesday. “The UK is being colonised by immigrants, really, isn’t it?” said the man whose team’s 33-man squad features 20 non-British players.

Ratcliffe added: “the population of the UK was 58 million in 2020, now it’s 70 million.” In fact, the population of the UK in 2020 was 67 million, but Ratcliffe did not acknowledge the error in his pathetic non-apology apology (“I am sorry that my choice of language has offended some people in the UK and Europe and caused concern but it is important to raise the issue of controlled and well-managed immigration that supports economic growth.”)

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If any more evidence was needed that Jim Ratcliffe was wrong, Nigel Farage then popped up to declare: “Jim Ratcliffe is right”. This gruesome twosome were on the same side in the Brexit wars, where Ratcliffe was one of a handful of business leaders to back leaving the EU.

Knighted two years later, once Britain was on the brink of formally Brexiting he showed his love of country and belief in the sunlit uplands to come by officially changing his tax domicile from Hampshire to Monaco, thus saving himself £4bn in tax.

Another great British Brexiteer patriot is John Redwood, the veteran Eurosceptic who in 2017, with the referendum won, wrote a financial advice column for the FT in which he recommended that investors should withdraw their money from the UK and invest in the EU instead. The article was headlined “Look further afield as the UK hits brakes”. That’s hardly “Country! Country! O but my heart is with you!”, as the Welsh national anthem so beautifully puts it.

Now Redwood has been rewarded for this remarkable display of loyalty to the flag by becoming Baron Redwood of Wokingham. Having taken his place in the House of Lords on Tuesday, he will now be able to hob-nob in ermine with the likes of Evgeny Lebedev and Ian Botham (if they ever turn up). He can join the lucky band of peers who get to listen to Claire Fox’s electric speeches close-up (I’ve no argument with that peerage; at least it keeps her off the radio).

Yet given all Redwood’s rage about the European Parliament, surely it can only be a matter of time before this principled figure starts ripping up the red upholstery of his new surroundings in protest at being trapped in an unelected, expensive chamber?

If Ratcliffe and Redwood are what Britain now chooses to honour, the best thing would be to stop calling them honours at all. Just scrap the lot.