How Graeme's Duchy jibe disgusted Doris

I'd be interested to know the basis of the legal advice which eventually forced Cornwall Council cabinet member Graeme Hicks to apologise to the council's Lib Dem leader Doris Ansari for his suggestion that she might consider returning her OBE in protest at Duchy of Cornwall proposals to develop land to the east of Truro.

Is there not a long and reasonably honourable tradition of returning gongs in protest at something? I don't know if John Lennon started it when he surrendered his MBE in 1969 in protest at the "Nigeria-Biafra thing" and one of his records slipping down the charts, but we were all reminded of gong-dissing as recently as last week, when Eaves charity chief exec Denise Marshall gave up her OBE in protest at how she thought government spending cuts would impact on vulnerable women.

As you can hear from the clip, Truro councillor Bert Biscoe does his best to pour petrol and lighted matches on the troubled waters and Doris is encouraged to be duly disgusted. Council leader Alec Robertson, attempting to chair the meeting, has my sympathies.