Call for abolition of knighthoods

THE ancient titles of “Sir” and “Dame” should be dropped and the Order of the British Empire scrapped and replaced by a new Order of British Excellence, a committee of MPs said yesterday.

The Commons Public Administration said radical reform was needed of an honours system which was out-dated, class-bound and too redolent of a long-gone imperial past.

It said that references to “Empire” in honours were now “unacceptable” in a country where many people no longer shared the values which it embodied.