Former Prime Minister of the United Kingdom Liz Truss has revealed her resignation honours list, which includes controversial nominations for several Conservative supporters and aides. Truss, who spent only 49 days in office, has nominated individuals including Conservative donor Jon Moynihan and former Vote Leave chief Matthew Elliott for seats in the House of Lords. Additionally, Ruth Porter, a former senior aide of Truss, has also been made a peer.
The nominations, which were largely made up of political supporters and former aides, have sparked criticism from some quarters. Willie Sullivan, Senior Director for Campaigns at the Electoral Reform Society, commented on the list, stating that “It will feel like an insult to many to see Liz Truss handing out peerages to friends and supporters after her disastrously short stint as prime minister,” adding that “It looks like the political class dishing out rewards for failure at a time when many people are still suffering the effects from her turbulent premiership.”
Furthermore, Labour and the Liberal Democrats have called on current Prime Minister Rishi Sunak to block the list. Labour’s Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Jonathan Ashworth suggested that “This list is proof positive of Rishi Sunak’s weakness and a slap in the face to working people who are paying the price of the Tories crashing the economy,” while Deputy Liberal Democrat Leader Daisy Cooper stated that “Truss handing out gongs after blowing a hole in the public finances and leaving families reeling from spiralling mortgage costs calls this whole honours system into disrepute.”
Despite the criticism, Downing Street has insisted that the list went through all the usual checks and was released at the same time as the New Year Honours because it had only just been finalised. Additionally, a Downing Street source noted that “the incumbent prime minister does not block the political peerage proposals of others,” as it is a long-standing convention.
Resignation honours have repeatedly come under scrutiny in the UK due to concerns that they bring the wider honours system into disrepute. Hannah White, the director of the Institute for Government think tank, has stated that such rules should be done away with, particularly because of the handing out of peerages, which gives one person a job for life legislating on behalf of the country “on the say so of a single individual.
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