At the Hay Festival, Toby Jones, who in Mr Bates vs The Post Office played Alan Bates, the former sub-postmaster, who has been at the forefront of the campaign to get justice for wrongly accused sub-postmasters and mistresses, recently described Bates as “a hero”. Speaking at the Hay Festival, he said of Bates, he is “really someone who I think of as a hero…He doesn't want any honours until he's finished the job…He can't be bought.” 

Jones added that the values that Bates has demonstrated, such as duty and following things through, are currently “unfashionable" but were the kind of values he grew up with. 

It was Bates’ honest stand in refusing to accept an honour until he’d “finished the job” that prompted me to start this petition. It is precisely because of people like Alan Bates that I believe we should retain an honours system: to recognise the everyday heroes who make our world a better place in which to live and who hold no truck with the idea that an honour is something that can be bought. 

This is what this petition is all about and why 57,000+ of you have joined me in signing it. Thank you again for standing firm with me in our efforts to see this petition realise its aims.