Ms Porter ran Ms Truss' Tory election leadership campaign and briefly served as her deputy chief of staff in Number 10.Īnd Mr Moynihan donated tens of thousands of pounds to Ms Truss' leadership campaign, according to the register of MPs' financial interests. Mr Elliott helped found the low-tax think tank the Taxpayers Alliance group and was chief executive of the main pro-Brexit campaign during the 2016 referendum. Mr Littlewood is director of the Institute of Economic Affairs, a free-market supporting think tank strongly associated with Ms Truss and her economic philosophy. Nonetheless, she has reportedly selected around 12 people to be honoured, said to include Tory party donor Jon Moynihan, aide Ruth Porter, ex-Vote Leave's Matthew Elliott and think tank boss Mark Littlewood. Having been prime minister for just 49 days, Liz Truss having drawn up an honours list is certainly controversial. So, when we get to see the list is very much up in the air, but it is another headache on the horizon for the prime minister. The paper also reports that the vetting of Mr Johnson's list has finished, and Rishi Sunak is due to have a phone call with his predecessor this week that Mr Johnson wants to be about peerages, but Mr Sunak wants to avoid. In today's Sunday Times, it is reported that the Conservative Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen could also be named on the list. It has been reported that they will not be allowed to defer their peerages until after the next general election, when they are all set to stand down, meaning that it could lead to three by-elections that the current prime minister will be in no mood to fight (and potentially lose) as he tries to resuscitate his party's position in the polls. Those appointments could cause a giant unwanted headache for Rishi Sunak, because one cannot sit in both the House of Commons and the House of Lords at the same time. It has previously been reported that three sitting Tory MPs are on the list - former culture secretary Nadine Dorries, former cabinet office minister Nigel Adams, and COP26 president Sir Alok Sharma. So what do we know about those lists, and when could they be published?Īfter his departure from office in September, it was reported that Boris Johnson had drawn up a list of 50 people to receive peerages. The appointments are vetted by the House of Lords Appointments Commission, as well as the Cabinet Office.īoth Boris Johnson and (controversially) Liz Truss have drawn up individual lists, and they could be published by the government at any time. If you're unfamiliar, resignation honours refers to the tradition of an outgoing prime minister granting a peerage, knighthood, or other kind of honour to a number of people. Pressed on whether the entries showed him "mingling with friends", Mr Johnson insisted "that is absolutely not what these diary entries show".Įvery week there are stories in the newspapers about resignation honours supposedly expected imminently, but yet to materialise. Mr Johnson was referred to the police by the Cabinet Office on Wednesday over events in Chequers and Downing Street following a review of his official diary as part of the official COVID inquiry. "I think it's ridiculous that elements in my diary should be cherry-picked and handed over to the police, to the privileges committee without even anybody having the basic common sense to ask me what these entries referred to." The former prime minister was confronted by Sky News about the allegations as he made his way through the Dulles International Airport in Washington following a brief tour of the US.Īsked if he broke the rules he told Sky's US correspondent James Matthews: "This whole thing is a load of nonsense from beginning to end. Boris Johnson has insisted fresh claims he broke lockdown rules are "total nonsense" and that elements of his ministerial diary were "cherry-picked and handed to police".
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |