LONDON, Dec 30: British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, who was under pressure from the Opposition to block short-lived predecessor Liz Truss’ customary resignation honours list, has cleared the controversial peerages.
Truss made 11 nominations of some of her close friends and allies, including Conservative Party donor Jon Moynihan and former Brexit Vote Leave chief Matthew Elliott for seats in the House of Lords.
Ruth Porter, a former senior aide to Liz Truss, is made a peer, as per the announcement released on Friday night alongside the annual New Year Honours list cleared by Downing Street in the name of King Charles III.
The former prime minister was forced to resign from 10 Downing Street after just 49 days in October 2022 because of turmoil in the financial markets following a disastrous mini-budget last September.
The Opposition Labour and the Liberal Democrat parties expressed their dismay at the announcement.
“This list is proof positive of Rishi Sunak’s weakness and a slap in the face of the working people who are paying the price of the Tories crashing the economy,” said Labour’s shadow Cabinet Office minister Jonathan Ashworth.
“Honours should be for those committed to public service, not rewards for Tory failure,” he said.
“Truss handing out gongs after blowing a hole in the public finances and leaving families reeling from spiralling mortgage costs calls this whole honours system into disrepute,” added Deputy Lib Dem leader Daisy Cooper.
Meanwhile, those close to the former prime minister are highlighting how the list is a “modest” one to honour hard work and Downing Street insisted it had gone through the usual checks. “The convention is the incumbent Prime Minister does not block the political peerage proposals of others,” the BBC quoted a Downing Street source as saying.
The Truss list also includes damehoods for Shirley Conran, of the Maths Anxiety Trust, and for Tory MP Jackie Doyle-Price, plus a knighthood for Tory MP Alec Shelbrooke.
Former Truss advisers Shabbir Merali and Sophie Jarvis will get Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBEs), while Tory MPs Rob Butler and Suzanne Webb will get Order of the British Empire (OBEs). David Hills, chair of the Conservative association in South West Norfolk, Truss’s constituency, gets an MBE, Member of the Order of the British Empire. (PTI)
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