- Friday, February 28, 2025
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner slammed Sunak saying it was “shameful” that the prime minister “failed to stand up to his former boss’s outrageous demands”.
By: Shubham Ghosh
Prime minister Rishi Sunak has come under criticism from the opposition after approving his predecessor Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list and other awards for allies, despite police and paramilitary probes continuing into the former prime minister over Partygate.
The list of the former premier gave honours to some of his aides who were closely related to the scandal, including an Order of the Bath for Martin Reynolds, his former principal private secretary, who oversaw a garden party during the Covid restrictions in 2020.
Johnson, who was the prime minister between July 2019 and September 2022, also gave peerage to his chief of staff Dan Rosenfield and a CBE to Jack Doyle, his former director of communications. Both the individuals were in service during some of the Partygate era of rule violation within No.10 and the probes into the scandal, The Guardian reported.
The former prime minister gave a knighthood to the former chair of the Conservative Party, Ben Elliot, and Jacob Rees-Mogg. Former home secretary Priti Patel was given a damehood.
Shaun Bailey, former candidate for London mayor’s post, received a peerage as well, along with Johnson’s long-term ally Ben Gascoigne, and Kulveer Ranger, a former City Hall adviser.
Aiming other aides to get honours included former communications director Guto Harri; Johnson’s personal assistant Ann Sindall and House of Commons hairdresser Kelly-Jo Dodge.
Sunak, however, left two current parliamentarians — Nadine Dorries and Alok Sharma — off the peerage list in order to avoid potentially disastrous by-elections for the Tories, The Guardian added. Dorries, a former culture secretary, said on Friday (9) that she was stepping down as a parliamentarian with immediate effect.
Johnson’s proposal of a knighthood for Stanley, his father, was also vetoed.
While Sunak came under criticism for approving the list, his press secretary said he had no involvement in the list and forwarded it “unamended” to King Charles, the BBC reported.
Johnson was also criticised. A formerly loyal aide to him called the honours list “an utter disgrace” and told the BBC that it was “rewards for failure all round”.
Labour’s deputy leader Angela Rayner slammed Sunak saying it was “shameful” that the prime minister “failed to stand up to his former boss’s outrageous demands and agreed to hand out prizes to this carousel of cronies”, the BBC added.
“He promised integrity, but this weak prime minister is once again showing his appalling judgement by doing Boris Johnson’s bidding,” she was quoted as saying.
Liberal Democrat Deputy Leader Daisy Cooper said Johnson was allowed to hand out gongs to his partygate pals and his successor just waved it through.
