It is understood that he wants to hand peerages to Nigel Adams, a cabinet office minister and one of his closest allies, and culture secretary Nadine Dorries, who has emerged as one of his most loyal cabinet colleagues. Both have large majorities, but the combination of a recent Tory poll slump and its disastrous recent byelection record could make the contests a close call.
There are currently two lists of peerages planned – one is a regular list, while the second is Johnson’s resignation honours list.
Adams, who championed Johnson long before he became Tory leader, has already announced he is stepping down at the next election. As minister without portfolio in the cabinet office, he was at the heart of attempts to rescue Johnson’s premiership as it was falling apart earlier this month.
He has held his seat of Selby and Ainsty three times, each time with an increased majority. He won the seat by more than 20,000 votes at the last election. Labour is the challenger and a byelection could show Keir Starmer’s party is closing the gap. Dorries holds the seat of Mid Bedfordshire, with a 24,000 majority at the last election.
It comes with persistent rumours that Johnson is planning a major list of peerages, which is expected to include the former editor of the Daily Mail, Paul Dacre. Johnson had been determined to make Dacre the chair of broadcasting regulator Ofcom, but the appointment was opposed by an independent selection panel. Dacre subsequently pulled out of the process. Some new peerages are expected to be announced this summer, but are first vetted by the House of Lords appointments commission.
Johnson has previously provoked criticism over his peerage appointments, having already nominated Lord Moore of Etchingham, his former editor at the Daily Telegraph, and Evgeny Lebedev, the Russian-born businessman and son of a former KGB officer.
If I were BJ, I too would be looking for revenge. He has been subjected to a constant undertow from within the party as well as from much of the media and don’t start me off about Captain Crasheroonie Snoozefest’s lack of constructive opposition.
Johnson is a small minded, petty, arrogant school bully of a man, so of course he’s planning revenge and doesn’t give a toss about the consequences. Par for the course
Further proof, if any were needed, that he never cared about the country or his party and doesn’t respect his parties ideology enough to care about them staying in power. Just as long as he gets them back for daring to give him the boot
Rewards for his pals and serving the chumocracy, of course it is
But something a lot nastier lurking underneath too
I agree. It is often claimed that he was so wonderful for getting us out of the EU (at least to a small extent), but having had the referendum he didn’t really have much choice, did he?
No, it certainly has not. The press - and I include the Telegraph as well as the gutter press - is demonstrating that more and more people are voluntarily surrendering their TV licences.
Of course, the BBC brought all that on themselves, didn’t they?
Boris Johnson’s plans for a major list of peerages has come under criticism, with the Lord Speaker saying it could erode “public confidence in our parliamentary system”.
The House of Lords Appointment Commission (Holac), the body responsible for vetting peerages, is holding up the outgoing prime minister’s plans, Whitehall sources told the Sunday Times, who also reported that such moves could be restricted in future.
The Lord Speaker, John McFall, is talking to Philip Norton, a Conservative peer, about his private member’s bill that would grant statutory powers to Holac.
It would prevent future prime ministers from recommending peers to the Crown before the commission’s verdict on their suitability and would also require them to tell the commission why the nominees meet the appointment criteria.
Johnson, who will create more peers in the autumn in a resignation honours list, has already appointed 86 peers, bringing the number of members sitting in the Lords to more than 800.
Johnson has previously provoked criticism over his peerage appointments, having already nominated Jo Johnson, his brother.
Analysis in 2020 found that almost a quarter of peerages awarded that year were to Conservative party donors, close associates or former colleagues of Johnson including businessman Peter Cruddas who was ennobled in defiance of advice from the House of Lords.
Johnson isn’t the first PM to use the honours list to reward his cronies, though - wasn’t Cameron also criticised for creating too many peers?
There should be stricter limits on the PM dishing out peerages.
There is far too many in the House of Lords now - it is ridiculous to have an unelected chamber with more members than there is in the elected chamber.
I thought the plan was to reduce the number of peers not keep creating more - they got it down to around 670 after the cull in 1999 but it’s increased again by about 100 since then - and this new lot will add even more members to an already top heavy chamber - what happened to the plan to cap the HoL to 600 and only appoint new peers on the basis of “2 out - 1 in” until the numbers had been reduced to that level?
The graph shows that creations per year were highest under David Cameron and lowest under Gordon Brown. However, it is again worth noting that these were the creations during their time in office. Therefore, many included appointments that were nominated by the previous prime minister via resignation or dissolution lists. It also would not account for their own resignation or dissolution lists, which would have been announced under the tenure of their successor.
