A Conservative MP has criticised those nominated by Boris Johnson for peerages as “a shameful list of bootlickers, bimbos and tropical island holiday facilitators”.
Scotland Secretary Alister Jack, former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, former minister Nigel Adams and the outgoing COP26 President Alok Sharma are among those expected to be nominated by the former prime minister to be elevated to the House of Lords.
The Times newspaper also reports that Mr Johnson has nominated two of his loyal advisers – Ross Kempsell, the Conservative Party’s former political director and Charlotte Owen, a former assistant to the former PM – to become the youngest life peers in history.
A source close to Mr Johnson said: “We never comment on speculation about honours.”
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But one Conservative MP is less than pleased with the former PM’s apparent choices.
“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,” they told Sky News.
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The politicians on the list are all understood to have agreed to delay heading to the Lords until the end of the current Parliament to spare Rishi Sunak the challenges.
How the peerages for MPs would be delayed was unclear, but the suggestion was that the King would have to approve the arrangement, in a move appearing to be without precedent.
Shaun Bailey, the former London mayoral candidate who faced a backlash for attending a mid-lockdown Christmas party, was also said to be on the former prime minister’s list.
The prime minister’s resignation honours are distinctions granted by an outgoing prime minister.
A PM can request the reigning monarch to grant peerages, knighthoods, damehoods or other awards in the British honours system to any number of people.
In the case of peerages, the House of Lords Appointments Commission vets the list.
Often, but not always, Downing Street staff, political aides and MPs are rewarded through the system.
