Boris Johnson rewards key allies in resignation honours list

Some of Boris Johnson’s closest allies – including Priti Patel and Jacob Rees-Mogg – have been rewarded with peerages and other awards in the former PM’s honours list.

Former secretaries of state Simon Clarke and Mr Rees-Mogg were knighted, while Ms Patel was made a dame.

Tees Valley Mayor Ben Houchen and London Assembly member Shaun Bailey are among seven new peers.

No serving MPs were given peerages, avoiding by-elections for the Tories.

Former Conservative minister Nadine Dorries was not put forward for the House of Lords, despite speculation she would be on the published list.

Ms Dorries – who served as culture secretary under Mr Johnson – stood down as an MP “with immediate effect” just over an hour before the honours list was released.

The long-awaited list, approved nine months after Mr Johnson resigned as prime minister, included 38 honours and seven peerages.

Kulveer Singh Ranger, a former director of transport while Mr Johnson was London mayor, and former Downing Street chief of staff Dan Rosenfield are also among those who will enter the Lords.

Charlotte Owen, a former adviser to Mr Johnson, will become one of the youngest peers, as will fellow advisers Ben Gascoigne and Ross Kempsell.

CBEs and OBEs were handed out to some of Mr Johnson’s closest advisers during his premiership, including two former directors of communications, Jack Doyle and Guto Harri.

Among those to receive honours were aides who served with Mr Johnson during the scandal over lockdown parties in Downing Street during the Covid-19 pandemic.

Martin Reynolds, Mr Johnson’s former principal private secretary, was awarded the Order of Bath.

In May 2020, Mr Reynolds sent an invite to a “bring your own booze” party to Downing Street staff when the nation was under lockdown.

Ben Elliot, the former co-chair of the Conservative Party, has also been awarded a knighthood, as have Tory MPs Michael Fabricant and Conor Burns, two Mr Johnson loyalists.

Rishi Sunak has approved Mr Johnson’s resignation honours list and “forwarded it unamended” to King Charles, the prime minister’s press secretary said.

“He had no involvement or input into the approved list,” the press secretary said.

By convention, a former prime minister’s resignation list of new peers is forwarded to the House of Lords Appointments Commission (HOLAC), which vets appointments.

Another Tory MP who did not feature on the list, despite being widely tipped for a peerage, was Alok Sharma, who was president of the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow.

Usually when sitting MPs are given peerages, they resign their seats, triggering by-elections.

Following the Partygate scandal and the political turbulence of Mr Johnson’s premiership, the former PM’s honours list was always expected to be controversial and to provoke fierce criticism.

Some of the reaction to the names published on Friday has met those expectations.

A formerly loyal aide to Mr Johnson branded the honours list “an utter disgrace”, telling the BBC it was “rewards for failure all round”.

They said: “Boris has slammed the door shut on the prospect of any return to the frontline of British politics and trashed what remained of his legacy.”

Labour’s deputy leader, Angela Rayner, said it was “shameful” that Mr Sunak had “failed to stand up to his former boss’s outrageous demands and agreed to hand out prizes to this carousel of cronies”.

“He promised integrity, but this weak prime minister is once again showing his appalling judgement by doing Boris Johnson’s bidding,” Ms Rayner said.

And Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper said: “Boris Johnson has been allowed to hand out gongs to his partygate pals, and Rishi Sunak has just waved it through.”

Boris Johnson is loyal to those who are loyal to him. And his resignation honours list underlines this – until the ink runs out.

Almost all of the 45 names know him personally. Many worked for him either at No 10 or when he was London mayor.

Even his current spokesman has been transformed into a legislator, with a seat in the House of Lords.

And for anyone who assumed that meritocracy might play a part in the honours system, a long-standing parliamentary hairdresser, Kelly Dodge, gets a gong for doing… Mr Johnson’s hair.

Yes, you read that correctly. Mr Johnson’s mop.

But just as Mr Johnson rewards loyalty, he has more subtly made clear disloyalty comes at a price.

He must know that a list strewn with reminders of the Partygate era will make the current PM uncomfortable.

The list is crammed with dames and knighthoods for some of Mr Johnson’s defenders in the parliamentary party.

But there are plenty of Conservative detractors, those who describe the list as “ghastly” or full of “sycophants”.

For them, the list has damaged their party specifically and trust in politics more generally.

But it also allows the opposition to portray Rishi Sunak as weak for not blocking the list.

Convention suggests prime ministers don’t veto their predecessors’ honours.

But Mr Johnson was a very unconventional occupant of No 10.