As I said, celebrities (famous sports people, actors, comedians) get knighted, probably because giving such awards to people "beloved by the Public" makes the Honors System seem honorable, even though such recipients are a tiny proportion of the whole - this very much dovetails with my point about how putting image management above almost all else is a well entrenched cultural characteristic of the English upper classes: by very publicly giving knighthoods and damehoods to celebrities they're maximizing the projection of a "good image" for the Honors System whilst minimizing the number of members of the "lower" classes who get it.

You will notice that in every year's honors list there's only one or two knighthoods and damehoods for "celebrities" right next to a much larger number of people getting similar awards whose only "honor" is being upper class and/or faithful servants of the State (and by State I don't mean Society as a whole, I mean the centuries old power structures of Britain).

I would say your view of it reflects their great success in using the technique of honoring people "beloved by the Public" to shape the Public's perception of the Honors System as rewarding merit, all the while the hard numbers show such recipients are but a tiny fraction of the total.

Beyond that you'll also see upper middle class people who have been faithful servants of the Establishment get knighthoods (quite common in the Justice System and probably why Sir Keir Starmer got his knighthood), which makes sense as a form of incentivising such people to be faithfull servants of the British Establishment - people within the machinery of the State who express a want for change don't end up in the Honors List.

Working Class people who were actual heroes risking their own lives for other people only ever get minor honors.