Stanley Johnson in line for a knighthood? What a disgrace

Well, of course he does. What else would you expect? Johnson has always regarded ethics in public office as drearily bourgeois, and besides, it’s hard to think of a birthday present for an 82-year-old. It was either this or a bottle of whisky and have you seen how much whisky costs these days?

The political reaction has been typical of most things concerned with Johnson, with people caught between incredulous laughter and trying not to call the former Prime Minister something unrepeatable live on air. “For services to what?” asked Labour leader and former director of public prosecutions Keir Starmer (Sir) while a disgusted Tommy Sheppard for the SNP declared that it was “making a mockery of the honours system”.

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He’s right. The whole thing’s a screaming embarrassment. How is it even possible, in a supposedly mature democracy, for former Prime Ministers to dole out honours to their relatives?

The worst aspect of it is how behaviour like this discredits and demeans the whole system in the eyes of the public, which is unfair on all the deserving people who are recipients of honours. What must nurses and scientists and charity campaigners think when they look at the medals they’ve received for looking after critically ill children or fundraising for dementia care, only for Stanley Johnson to leapfrog them to the highest honour in the system?

Stanley’s daughter Rachel, Boris’s sister, tried valiantly to argue that her dad would have been in line for an honour anyway, regardless of his relationship to Boris, because of all his years of service to the Conservative party, but that only underscores the sheer wrongness of it all. You know things are bad when you deflect accusations of family patronage by claiming its party patronage instead.

This medieval relic of a system has been tinkered with over the last century but never properly reformed, mainly because the Conservatives have done their damnedest to prevent it.

Harold Wilson did away with honours for party political service in 1966, only for Margaret Thatcher to reintroduce them. A month after Thatcher’s resignation came the news that her husband Denis would be made a hereditary peer, the only baronetcy title awarded since 1964. Mark Thatcher now holds the title, retaining it in spite of being convicted in South Africa over his involvement in a failed coup attempt in Equatorial Guinea in 2005.

A select committee in 2004 recommended sensible ways to modernise the system, expressing “unease” about the awarding of honours to political donors and those who have given political service.

They wanted to make the awards process more transparent and independent, end the practice of the Prime Minister and other senior ministers drawing up lists of nominees and phase out knighthoods and damehoods, calling them “redolent with past preoccupations of rank and class”. They also wanted a change to the names of honours, God bless them, to replace of the Order of the British Empire with Order of British Excellence.

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Unfortunately Labour were half-hearted in their response, but then came the “cash for honours” scandal, when the SNP and Plaid Cymru called for an investigation into wealthy individuals receiving honours in return for loans.

A police investigation followed, with Labour and the Tories questioned; ultimately no charges were brought but it badly shook public confidence in the honours system. Blair said he would no longer personally recommend anyone for honours. Blair and Gordon Brown nominated working peers but no other political service honours.

It didn’t last. With the election of David Cameron, back came the old ways. His government rejected further select committee demands for an independent honours commission. Cameron duly produced the first resignation honours list since John Major which included former aides and Tory party donors.

Boris Johnson recommended Theresa May’s husband Philip for a knighthood, gave his brother Jo a peerage and is now apparently playing Father Christmas with a lavish list of baubles for the boys.

Johnson is rumoured to have a list of 100 nominees, compared to 60 for May and 62 for Cameron, suggesting that the habit is becoming more and more ingrained. We can only guess at this stage who else might be in line for an award. Larry the Downing Street cat, who was there throughout lockdown, surely knows too much to be left outside the tent.

Larry the Downing Street cat surely must next be in line for a knighthood (Image: PA)

But it’s not just the awarding of political honours that needs overhaul. As that select committee pointed out nearly 20 years ago, it’s the cringey nomenclature. It’s 2023 for pity’s sake.

We know that for many recipients of the medals, the reference to empire is a source of embarrassment and even anguish. Some black nominees have spoken about the link between empire and slavery, and how difficult a position it has put them in to be offered an award; poet Benjamin Zephaniah rejected an OBE in 2003 as it reminded him of “thousands of years of brutality”.

Order of British Excellence is a simple and clever compromise, but surely we can add a few new gongs? What about awards that reflect the status of the four nations and perhaps also the regions of the UK? Thistles, Daffodils, Flax Flowers and Roses, perhaps?

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To try and modernise the system would trigger legions of salivating culture warriors, but could be done as part of a wider reform of the House of Lords.

Each government seeks to build in a numerical advantage in the Lords for its own party by stuffing the red benches with peers. Former parliamentarians and political staffers are massively over-represented compared to those with valuable experience outside of politics, such as in science or health or education. We are about a hundred years past time to reform the place.

And we need an independent committee – a truly autonomous group – to decide on honours, taking the process out of the hands of politicians.

It’s been obvious for decades what needs to be done. How many crony knighthoods do we have to endure before something is finally done?