LIGHT entertainment king Bruce Forsyth receives a long-awaited knighthood in today’s honours list.

The 83-year-old Strictly Come Dancing host’s is recognised for a prime-time TV career spanning more than half a century.

A CBE goes to Colin Firth, giving the 50-year-old actor a chance to ask the Queen in person what she thought of his Oscar-winning performance as her father George VI in The King’s Speech.

Singer Bryan Ferry, 65, whose hits with Roxy Music include Love Is The Drug and Virginia Plain, also receives a CBE.

England’s Ashes-winning cricketers are honoured, with OBEs for captain Andrew Strauss, 34, and coach Andy Flower, 43, and an MBE for player of the series Alastair Cook, 26. Golfer Lee Westwood, 38, until last month the world's number one player, gets an OBE.

The ex-EastEnders actor Brooke Kinsella, 27, gets an MBE for her campaign against knife crime, prompted by the murder of her 16-year-old brother Ben in 2008.

Author Julia Donaldson, 62, best known for The Gruffalo, caps a week in which she was appointed the Children's Laureate by being awarded an MBE.

OBEs go to Graeme Garden, 68, and Tim Brooke-Taylor, 70, creators of 1970s TV series The Goodies with Bill Oddie, 69, who received his OBE in 2003. Other broadcasters honoured include BBC Radio 4 Woman’s Hour presenter Jenni Murray, 61, who is made a dame, and BBC Radio 2 DJ Bob Harris, 65, an OBE.

In the acting world, an OBE is awarded to Bernard Cribbins, 82.

IVF pioneer Professor Robert Edwards, 85, is knighted eight months after being awarded the Nobel Prize for medicine for his work that led to the birth in 1978 of the world’s first test tube baby.

Cotswold farmer Joe Henson, who founded the Breeds Survival Trust to conserve Britain’s native farm livestock, gets an MBE.

There are MBEs for three of Britain's London 2012 Olympic medal hopefuls, world heptathlon champion Jessica Ennis, 25, from Sheffield, world triple jump champion Phillips Idowu, 32, originally from Hackney, east London, but now based in Birmingham, and 15-time Tour de France stage-winning cyclist Mark Cavendish, 26, from the Isle of Man.

An OBE is awarded to former basketball star John Amaechi, 40, who grew up in Stockport before moving to the US and becoming one of the game's biggest names. He became the first openly gay NBA player after coming out in 2007.

In business and the City, knighthoods go to Bank of England governor Mervyn King, 63, and Brian Souter, 56, chief executive of Perth-based international transport group Stagecoach, while Sainsbury's chief executive Justin King, 50, is given a CBE.

Former Tory leader Michael Howard, 69, who was born in Gorseinon, South Wales, and was ennobled last year as Lord Howard of Lympne in Kent, is made a Companion of Honour for public and political services.

Media lawyer Mark Stephens, 54, from Wanstead, east London, whose high-profile clients have included WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, is awarded a CBE.