Sport Geoffrey Boycott knighted

Long overdue. Boycott is not just a cricketing icon but a great broadcaster too. Speaks his mind and that is something that is disappearing from society in an increasingly PC world.

I don’t get the furore either over his supposed domestic violence case. He’s always denied it and although it can’t be proved, you suspect someone as straight and searingly honest as he appears would be incapable of lying for 25 years.

If there’s a clamour to rescind his knighthood then perhaps we ought to do the same with Sir Mick Jagger, convicted of drug offences 50 odd years ago.

No one would ever get a knighthood, there skeletons in everyone’s cupboard.
 
No one would ever get a knighthood, there skeletons in everyone’s cupboard.
Some might say that might not be a bad thing...

The whole 'honours' thing has been so devalued. For every long-serving lollipop lady who gets an MBE (or whatever) there are innumerable political cronies, party donors and mates of mates getting knighthoods, OBEs, peerages etc that I doubt anyone much takes it at all seriously any longer!
 
I don’t get the furore either over his supposed domestic violence case. He’s always denied it and although it can’t be proved, you suspect someone as straight and searingly honest as he appears would be incapable of lying for 25 years.

If there’s a clamour to rescind his knighthood then perhaps we ought to do the same with Sir Mick Jagger, convicted of drug offences 50 odd years ago.

Well that's the thing, here, isn't it. It's not that he was accused of domestic abuse; he was convicted by a French court; a conviction that then held up on appeal. An independent doctor testified that the injuries his former partner suffered couldn't have happened the way Boycott described.
In the eyes of French law - which has some differences but is comparable with our own - it was proven that he was an abuser.

Can courts get it wrong? Of course.
But also just because some random bloke says he's innocent every day for 25 years, doesn't mean that's true either. Lance Armstrong said he was innocent every day for a decade - turned out he was a lying sociopath. Boycott could be as well - and personally I think that's more likely than an independent court sifting through all the evidence, finding it sufficient to prove him guilty, and being wrong. Not 100% certain - but more likely.

Also I personally think that pinning a woman down and punching her in the face is significantly worse than taking some psychedelic drugs.....but maybe that's just me.
 
I just find it odd that he's the epitome of what it means to be a proud Yorkshireman, yet who does he support? Manchester United.

Even if you ignore the domestic abuse conviction, just reading through his wiki page makes it quite obvious he's an unpleasant person, he falls out with pretty much everyone he comes into contact with.
 
Well that's the thing, here, isn't it. It's not that he was accused of domestic abuse; he was convicted by a French court; a conviction that then held up on appeal. An independent doctor testified that the injuries his former partner suffered couldn't have happened the way Boycott described.
In the eyes of French law - which has some differences but is comparable with our own - it was proven that he was an abuser.

Can courts get it wrong? Of course.
But also just because some random bloke says he's innocent every day for 25 years, doesn't mean that's true either. Lance Armstrong said he was innocent every day for a decade - turned out he was a lying sociopath. Boycott could be as well - and personally I think that's more likely than an independent court sifting through all the evidence, finding it sufficient to prove him guilty, and being wrong. Not 100% certain - but more likely.

Also I personally think that pinning a woman down and punching her in the face is significantly worse than taking some psychedelic drugs.....but maybe that's just me.


Maybe you're right that punching a woman is worse than a drug offence but does that make the drug conviction acceptable ? It's an offence and a conviction, simple as that. Knighthoods shouldn't be based on a sliding scale of criminality, if a conviction is seen as good for one then it's good for all. If it's a message that the do gooders want to send out about domestic violence then the drug busters should be all over Jagger and others wanting a rescinding of their knighthoods.
 
A knighthood is no barometer to a persons character or any kind of moral compass.
He may, or may not be a complete and utter A*****e. But he will be in good company as they seem to pin one on a full range of dickheads, prats and morons.
Sir Phillip Greene being one of the biggest!?
 
Back in the day when being a knight really meant something of course, only punching a woman and not raping or murdering hundreds would be seen as quite odd.
 
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