Quick, someone call a structural engineer: the honours system is, and has been for some time, a crumbling edifice, with bits of masonry constantly falling off and the whole thing looking as if it is in danger of collapse. The question is, do we try to shore it up — or knock down the whole thing and start all over again?

Starting over has its attractions. The ruling by the Privy Council highlights just one potential absurdity in a system that is built on anachronism. Most Excellent Order of the British Empire? Knight Grand Cross of the Most Honourable Order of the Bath? It is hard not to laugh when faced with such archaic titles; to complain about the Trinity Cross, on the ground that the recipient might not believe in the Christian God, is a bit rich when it is rather harder to believe in the British Empire, which does not actually exist any more.

Five years ago a committee of MPs recommended a pretty radical overhaul of the system. Knighthoods and damehoods should go, they said, because they are associated with “rank and class”, and the Order of the British Empire — “redolent of an imperial history” — should be replaced so that a CBE would become a Companion of British Excellence.

How drab. It is only when one starts considering the alternatives to the current arrangement that it becomes apparent that, however flawed it may be, anything is preferable to a system of honours that has all the magic of a PR handout and whose only distinguishing characteristic is a desire not to offend.

When Benjamin Zephaniah refused his OBE appointment because the word “empire” reminded him of slavery and brutality, did his objection really make sense? Yes, there are aspects of our history of which we can all be ashamed, but it was under the British Empire that this country abolished the slave trade and campaigned against those who would keep it going. You pays your money and you takes the history of your choice.

And, anyway, what is wrong with a bit of history? If we rename our honours now, we will only have to rename them again in a century or so when some attention-seeker decides that the Order of British Excellence is elitist, or discriminatory, or just too British.

Yes, there are absurdities. If the senior civil servants want their Most Distinguished Order of St Michael and St George, let them have it; if it keeps them happy to be fobbed off with ridiculous gee-gaws based on time served instead of merit, why should anyone else care? All it means is that we don’t have to pay them so much.

There are, after all, far more important things to worry about when it comes to honours. Corruption is never more than a brown envelope away and, more commonly, there is nothing that so devalues the system as the showering of honours on recipients — from pop stars to industrialists — who have done nothing more to deserve it than make themselves very, very rich.

Keep the history, keep the names: they are among the few things that are any good about the current set up. Just keep that structural engineer on hold, though.

Explore Law

• Columnists

• Law Panel

• Law Reports

• Student Law

Times Recommends

• BGC 'set aside £40m to lure Tullett brokers'
• Legal aid review to ensure value
• Fears as 21 magistrates' courts face closure