Peerages for cronies are a constitutional novelty
The Independent|November 09, 2022
Predictably, Boris Johnson's reported resignation honours list is a defiant compilation of cronies, donors and private jokes.
SEAN O'GRADY
Peerages for cronies are a constitutional novelty

In the candid words of one anonymous Conservative MP to Sky News: "What a shameful list of bootlickers, bimbos and tropical island holiday facilitators who between them can be proud to have pushed trust in politics to an extreme low during their tenures and offered very little in return to the British people."

Then again, Johnson was never much bothered about any of that.

An immediate problem is the unsuitability of some of the names being proposed by the new prime minister on behalf of his predecessor to the King, by convention. They're very much Johnson's responsibility, his personal gifts of recognition on the occasion of his departure, as opposed to the usual run of honours in the New Year and on the sovereign's birthday. But No 10 will always be wary of recommending questionable characters for vetting by the House of Lords appointments committee and, more informally, Buckingham Palace. So the twenty or so originals have been whittled down.

One apparent omission is the long-rumoured elevation of the editor-in-chief of the Daily Mail titles, Paul Dacre, to a peerage.

This story is from the November 09, 2022 edition of The Independent.

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This story is from the November 09, 2022 edition of The Independent.

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