The only people who should be awarded medals are those who fight for their country or risk their lives in the emergency services.

You know, precisely the kind of folk who would turn them down in any case because – as my grandad once said ­after scraping his dead mates off the streets ­of wartime France – they are “just doing their jobs.”

The British gong system is such hypocritical, tarnished, dated tosh that we should have scrapped it years ago.

This latest round, with former PM Theresa May dishing out honours to her mostly utterly useless cronies, just hammers the point home. MBE, OBE, CBE? They mean absolutely sod all these days.

And Tezza’s batch mostly just deserve CRAP after their names. Creeping Rapacious Ambitious Pillocks.

Can’t even be bothered to remember their names to be honest because they are going to sink back into the ­obscurity they so richly deserve.

Of course, May’s most controversial ­reward is for her hero, cricket legend Geoffrey Boycott, who becomes a Sir.

This is supposedly for his charidee work rather than his sporting achievements, but knighting a bloke who was convicted of beating his girlfriend up in 2006? He didn’t help himself yesterday ­either – when quizzed on this by a ­female radio host – by declaring: “I don’t give a toss, love.”

Still, when you also consider he once declared he had been passed over for gongs in the past because he is not black, nothing should surprise us.

For the admittedly deserving and mostly anonymous charity workers who receive them, does it really make any ­difference? How many of the “ordinary” folk who have received honours recently can you actually recall? Me neither.

And as for handing out rewards to every sportsman and woman who ­manages not to actually lose at their chosen sport, what’s that about? Where do you draw the line? Bog snorkelling?

Being old, pale and male, Boycott – sorry SIR Boycott – is an easy target for the PC brigade. But if we delved into previous gongees, very few of them are as pure as the driven slush.

Which again just makes a mockery of the whole fiasco. Why do we bother any more? If you want to raise money for charity, good for you. But if you’re doing it for the right reasons you won’t expect a reward for it either.

And actors? What’s that about. Again we’re saying well done for doing your (not exactly demanding) job.

To their credit, some people do turn down honours. David Bowie, director Danny Boyle, Dawn French, Jennifer Saunders and Nigella Lawson all did.

Some because they think the whole thing is silly, others because being ­rewarded for having fun (as French and Saunders explained) was just wrong.

“I’m not saving anyone’s life,” said a bemused Nigella, turning down her OBE in 2001. Which is a bit ironic, given that it was Mrs May who, in the interest of saving victims’ lives, introduced the new Domestic Abuse Bill this year.

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