This should be the death knell for our tainted honours: SARAH VINE says it is beyond perverse that Victoria Beckham is being recognised when hundreds of others who are more deserving are overlooked 

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Beckham has been given an OBE ahead of countless heroic public servants, innovators and inventors

Here’s a little seasonal quiz for you. Professor David Deutsch, ground-breaking Oxford physicist; Olivia de Havilland, iconic actress; Giles Mason, reforming Governor of Brixton Prison, Katherine Birbalsingh, inspirational headteacher; Victoria Beckham, former pop star.

Which one of these has been awarded an OBE in the New Year’s Honours list?

Is it De Havilland, now 100, star of Gone with the Wind and veteran of countless films from Hollywood’s golden age? No. Must be Deutsch then, venerated author and theoretical physicist, or Giles Mason for his brave leadership of one of the country’s toughest jails, or Ms Birbalsingh for showing inner city comprehensive children can out-perform kids in leafy suburban grammars? Er, no, no and once again, no.

It’s Beckham, of course. Victoria Beckham. Erstwhile Posh Spice. Yup, that’s right. Ahead of countless heroic public servants, innovators and inventors, and indeed artists of distinction with decades-long careers of great work, it’s the fringe on a stick who warbled along to Wannabe who receives royal recognition.

Now I have nothing against Mrs Beckham personally. I’m sure she’s a loyal friend, charming neighbour, wonderful parent and generous-hearted soul who thinks of others before herself 99 per cent of the time.

Olivia de Havilland (left) and Professor David Deutsch (right) have not been given awards in the honours list, although Victoria Beckham has

She was a weak singer and half-competent dancer in a plastic pop group created by the music industry to make its most cynical moguls more money

Beckham (left) is someone who has sought out the paparazzi’s cameras, played the publicist’s game and pouted from every front page

But then so are the overwhelming majority of readers of this paper, indeed citizens of the UK. And yet they work hard, help others and contribute to the community without any reward apart from the knowledge they are doing the right thing.

Of course, every year a few either exceptional, or lucky, individuals who work quietly and diligently to make others’ lives better do get plucked from the multitude and recognised with an honour.

An MBE here or a BEM there is conferred on a teacher or hospital porter who has helped children appreciate the joy of learning or nursed the frail through times of pain. There are many teachers and NHS workers who will have worked just as hard, and as nobly, as those who are honoured and who never enjoy similar recognition.

While she has devoted time to charitable causes, including being a UNAIDS goodwill ambassador, Mrs Beckham is not someone who has toiled quietly away from the limelight to help others less fortunate than herself

But no one begrudges those fortunate recipients their trip to the Palace and their medal because when they are rewarded – because it is a way of showing how much we value all those who serve society with caring hearts and tireless patience.

While she has devoted time to charitable causes, including being a UNAIDS goodwill ambassador, Mrs Beckham is not someone who has toiled quietly away from the limelight to help others less fortunate than herself.

She is someone who has sought out the paparazzi’s cameras, played the publicist’s game (even on this occasion she could not resist ‘leaking’ her gong against all protocol and good manners) and pouted from every front page in her restless quest to become, and remain, a celebrity.

The fleshless fashionista body image she has so deliberately cultivated and kept up only reinforces the malign tendency of our times to make girls feel they aren’t cutting it unless they too are thinner than any sane mother can ever expect to be

Whatever else Victoria Beckham lacks, it is not publicity. She is one of the most-recognised, photographed and talked-about women in the country.

So it seems beyond perverse that the honours system – which is designed to celebrate the unrecognised and the overlooked heroes and heroines of our society – should be deployed to give this individual the one thing of which she already has a surfeit: recognition.

And it must be said that recognition – that celebrity – is not built on a solid base of talent. Mrs Beckham has relied on others throughout her career to get the attention of a fickle media – and then keep it.

She was a weak singer and half-competent dancer in a plastic pop group created by the music industry to make its most cynical moguls more money.

She caught the eye of a genuine global talent, David, and became part of brand Beckham.

Beckham (pictured with husband David, above) is set to be awarded an OBE

But while he is an athlete of genius and a natural gentleman, it has never been clear how his stature has been raised by association with her. Latterly, she has launched her own fashion brand, selling clothes which others have had more than a modest hand in designing and which would struggle to command the attention of any shopper without the magic of the Beckham name to add allure.

But there is no evidence throughout her career of any spark of real creative talent, let alone genius, of the kind which compels admiration

It takes a certain manipulative skill – like the assiduous social climber Becky Sharp in William Thackeray’s novel Vanity Fair – to ascend so successfully through the lustre of others. So Victoria’s ambition is certainly quite something.

But there is no evidence throughout her career of any spark of real creative talent, let alone genius, of the kind which compels admiration. She does not have the voice of an Adele, the balletic grace of a Sylvie Guillem, the design panache of a Nicole Farhi or Paul Smith or even the sheer life-enhancing joyousness of a Miranda Hart or a Clare Balding.

She is a fashion plate, a brittle glass which reflects the emptiness of celebrity culture, a bleak, blank slate on which others can project their dreams of fame.

And – what is worse – she has used her time in the public eye not to make others feel more at ease with themselves or champion difference and diversity.

Instead the fleshless fashionista body image she has so deliberately cultivated and kept up only reinforces the malign tendency of our times to make girls feel they aren’t cutting it unless they too are thinner than any sane mother can ever expect to be. Services to fashion? More like anorexia and low self-esteem. You might as well give an OBE to Kim Kardashian – at least she has a healthy BMI.

If this is the best we can do then there is only one conclusion to be drawn. The honours system, established by King George V in 1917 after the First World War as a means of means of ‘rewarding individuals’ personal bravery, achievement or service to the British Empire’, has run its course.