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Political activists aiming to prevent Boris Johnson’s honours list from being rubber-stamped have received a boost this week, after their petition received tens of thousands of new signatures. The campaign, ran by 38 Degrees, is now at a major milestone.
At the time of writing, the petition had received 300,000 signatures. It has been active over the last 10 months, and was established almost immediately after Johnson left Downing Street in disgrace. Endorsements from the likes of Carol Vorderman this week have advanced the cause:
The honours list was made public this week, and it has ruffled a few feathers. BoJo handed peerages to former London mayoral candidate Shaun Bailey and Tees Valley mayor Ben Houchen, while giving staunch loyalists Jacob Rees-Mogg and Priti Patel a knighthood and a damehood respectively.
Benjamin Gascoigne, a former deputy chief of staff to the ex-prime minister will enter the House of Lords alongside Ross Kempsell, a former political director of the Conservative Party. Alas, the farcical gongs don’t end there…
Kelly Dodge, a long-serving Parliamentary hairdresser, has been put forward for an OBE. She has been responsible for ‘styling’ Mr. Johnson’s hair while in office. And, if we’re being brutally honest, it’s not exactly honour-worthy work she’s been doing.
However, campaigners are less bothered about his mop, and more concerned with the list of lifetime peerages. The group feels that the findings of the Partygate inquiry should prevent the ex-PM from being able to issue a resignation honours list altogether:
“Despite his actions around the Partygate scandal, Boris Johnson is still set to be allowed to elect a large number of people to the House of Lords as part of his resignation honours list. His defenders should not be rewarded with a lifetime positions and titles.” | 38 Degrees
