"I predicted a Lavender List of “dodgy donors and obsequious courtiers”.
Further details have emerged about Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list and it shows once more just how much the honours system is in need of desperate reform and how shameless the former prime minister is.
Johnson has included former editor of the Daily Mail Paul Dacre on his list, despite Dacre being blocked by the House of Lords Appointment Commission on a previous list, the Times has reported.
The commission is said to have raised concerns that he is still an “active journalist”.
The list also includes David Ross, the multi-millionaire Carphone Warehouse founder who was forced to quit as a City Hall aide over a shares selling scandal.
Also included on the list are two aides under the age of 30, Ross Kempsell and Charlotte Owen. Among the 20 people nominated by the former prime minister are also four Tory MPs including Alister Jack, the Scotland secretary, Nadine Dorries, the former culture secretary, Nigel Adams, a former minister, and Alok Sharma, the outgoing Cop26 president.
“The MPs have agreed to delay taking peerages until the end of this parliament to avoid triggering by-elections, at Johnson’s request”, the Times reports.
The SNP’s John Nicolson tweeted in response to the news: “This summer, Mr Speaker became agitated when I asked Boris Johnson – in his final #PMQs – about his upcoming resignation honours list. I predicted a Lavender List of “dodgy donors and obsequious courtiers”.
Basit Mahmood is editor of Left Foot Forward
(Picture credit: Foreign and Commonwealth Office: Creative Commons)
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