Honours

Some people are really getting into a tizzy about the prospect of a knighthood for Lewis Hamilton.

He's won more World Championships than any other British driver and is on level pegging with the record holder, Michael Schumacher. Sir Stirling Moss was, famously, 'the greatest British driver to never win a championship'. Sir Jackie Stewart only won 3 world championships, but he's a Scot and so doesn't count at the present time of the possibility of Scottish independence. Even the great Jack Brabham only won 3 world championships. So, Hamilton's ability is not in question and it's not as if there are no precedents in the world of motorsport.

One of the factors that seems to rankle is his tax status but, if you care to check, he's among the 5,000 highest tax payers in the UK. Sure, he doesn't pay all his tax in the UK - much is paid where he actually earns it. He also helps keep a team of 1,000 people employed and at the top of the sponsorship table. So, Hamilton's tax affairs, which are entirely legal, are not really in question either. Sir Jackie Stewart was a tax exile in Switzerland and used numerous offshore, tax advantageous systems to fund his F1 team.

"But he doesn't live here." is a common refrain. Nor do many recipients and I'm not aware of country of residence being a disqualification for nationality. Lord Lawson is decamping to the warmer climes of France, but hasn't been ordered to surrender his British passport or his peerage.

"Doctors and nurses are more deserving," say some; however, I'm not aware of there being a limit on the lower orders of knighthood such as Knight Batchelor; there's nothing to stop deserving doctors and nurses receiving a K as well - it's not a numbers game. A lot of totally undeserving people get booted into the House of Lords, for heaven's sake, and some tosser thought John Redwood deserved a knighthood - probably for services to lying.

So, what else is it about Hamilton that makes him attract so much ire from certain sections of the population? Is it possibly that he's simply too successful and not the underdog? He's certainly no Eddy the Eagle and has a penchant for making winning look easy, which does not endear him to many. There is the perennial argument that he has the best car and his winning is not 100% down to him, but a multiplicity of factors. There is a degree of validity to this argument and it will be tested in today's race, where he is replaced by George Russell due to Hamilton testing positive for Covid. Russell has managed to secure second place on the starting grid. However, this argument casts aspersions on all past F1 recipients' knighthoods.

There is, of course, a much more obvious reason, but I'd like to think that's prevalent in only a very small and dwindling percentage of those objecting to the possibility of him receiving a gong.