Roy Bailey. Ex MBE and Working Class Hero

In the 2000 Honours List, Roy Bailey , all round good egg and Professor Emeritus of Social Studies at Sheffield Hallam University received the MBE for services to folk music. Lord Patel has just discovered that on 23rd August 2006, he returned the MBE in protest at the UK government's foreign policy with regard to Lebanon, Iraq and Palestine.

The reasons for this dreadful case of lese majeste are detailed on his website http://www.roybailey.net/ an excerpt..

TONY BLAIR INSISTS HIS DECISIONS ARE IN SUPPORT OF DEMOCRACY. WE CANNOT BOMB PEOPLE INTO ACCEPTING DEMOCRACY ANY MORE THAN WE COULD SLAUGHTER PEOPLE INTO ACCEPTING CHRISTIANITY.

Good Old Roy, guardian of the working class conscience, friend of Tony Benn (Ex Viscount Stansgate - who relieved himself of the title but not the rich inheritance) who could in his earlier days do a very passable imitation of the Queen who bestowed the MBE on him. Few will forget his Queen's Broadcast as the theatre lights dimmed at the start of the Leicester University Rag Revue in 1960 (?). His clipped regal tones announced.." My husband and I cannot be with you tonight, but we send our best wishes , and so do Charles, and Anne and Andrew ..and ... and .. pssst what's the other one called ...."

.. and that was in the days when the Lord Chancellor's Blue Pencil was supposed to censor stage productions.