The House of Lords is a more interesting space than the House of Commons. It is more gilded and ornate due to its closer links to the monarch, who is not allowed enter the more austere Commons. The House of Lords also has the more curious historical quirks.
A kindly, senior member of the House of Lords took my family and I on a behind-the-ropes tour of parliament some weeks back, when I was still awaiting my own security clearance.
Parliament was in recess and we were on the floor of the House of Lords, standing at the despatch box on the large table that separates the government and opposition benches.
He rubbed his finger on some faint damage to the table, to the right of one of the boxes.
“What’s that?” I asked.
“That’s from Winston Churchill,” he replied. After the Commons was wrecked by a German bomb in 1941, for the following nine years MPs actually met in the upper chamber. Churchill gave some of his most tub-thumping wartime speeches in the House of Lords, banging the table while wearing his famous signet ring. The dents remain.
The former prime minister and now also former MP, Boris Johnson, is said to fancy himself as a modern day Churchillian figure. One wonders what his political forebear would have made of the row this week over Johnson’s resignation honours list, and his failed attempt to reward some of his closest allies with peerages in the House of Lords.
The row between him and the current prime minister Rishi Sunak, whom he accuses of skulduggery to trim Johnsonites off the list, has cast an unwelcome light on the UK’s honours system. Its critics say it is grubby cronyism. Liberal Democrats deputy leader Daisy Cooper says the row over Johnson’s list has exposed the system’s “corruption, pure and simple”.
A distinction should be made between the system of awarding honours, such as knighthoods, and the nomination of life peers to the House of Lords, although the two are interlinked and often lumped on to the same list.
Honours, including Commander of the British Empire (CBE), knighthoods and dames, are awarded by the king on the advice of the prime minister twice per year, once in the new year and also on the sovereign’s official birthday in the summer (even though King Charles was actually born in November). Members of the public can also nominate honours, but most come from government.
Separately, the government can also nominate life peers of the House of Lords. These are scrutinised separately by the House of Lords appointments commission. Nominations can happen during a government term, but traditionally, an outgoing prime minister also makes a list. It was Johnson’s resignation list, stuffed with his pals, that has caused the mither.
Scottish actor and independence supporter Alan Cummings told a political show at the weekend that nominating peerages for the upper house of the UK’s legislature is treated like “leaving a tip at a restaurant” by politicians such as Johnson.
Among Johnson’s approved nominations for lifetime peerages are his spokesman, 31-year-old Ross Kempsell, who used to work as a journalist for the muckraking Guido Fawkes website, where he donned a chicken suit to ambush politicians he accused of cowardly behaviour.
Johnson has also nominated another of his political assistants, Charlotte Owens, who turns 30 this month. Other nominations were not approved, such as Nadine Dorries, who then quit as an MP, and Alok Sharma, although he should be fine seeing as he also got a knighthood in the new year list.
Peerages aside, some of Johnson’s honours nominations have also raised eyebrows. Brexiteers will soon have another knight in their midst, when the controversial Jacob Rees-Mogg kneels before the king for his award.
Johnson was also upset that his father, Stanley Johnson, was left off the list for a knighthood. The government was worried about how it might look to nominate Johnson’s family, but one wonders why: Theresa May arranged a knighthood for her husband.
David Cameron, after losing the Brexit referendum, gave an OBE to his wife’s stylist, Isabel Spearman, who now has the fact splashed across her business’s Instagram page.
Curious honours and peerage behaviour isn’t confined to the Tories. Former Labour leader Tony Blair was once questioned by police when he was prime minister after three party donors who had coughed up £5 million for Labour’s coffers turned up on its list for the House of Lords.
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Labour, which looks increasingly like Britain’s government-in-waiting, is promising to overhaul the House of Lords, which is bloated with almost 800 members.
In 2021, the party also proposed scrapping the honours system, although lately it seems to have backtracked. It will be interesting to see how Labour’s leader, Sir Keir Starmer, addresses the issue.