Tortoise Media reports that Lib Dem Cabinet Office spokesperson Christine Jardine has written to the Forfeiture Committee to ask them to rescind Boris Johnson’s entire Honours list.
In a letter sent to the committee, seen by Tortoise, Jardine said Johnson had “launched deplorable attacks on the Committee and our Parliamentary democracy”. She also raised doubts about the suitability of individuals on the list, including those “implicated in the partygate saga”.
Jardine wrote: “I am therefore urging you to open an investigation into the potential withdrawal of all of Boris Johnson’s honours which fall under the scope of your Committee. Clearly, the circumstances around this list – and the events which have occurred since its release – are unprecedented and have brought the honours system into disrepute. I believe that there are grounds for examining whether Boris Johnson’s resignation honours list can be revoked in its entirety.”
But Jardine is not alone in having raised questions about the appropriateness of progressing with the honours list.
Another Lib Dem MP noted that Johnson could fall foul of the ruling on individuals being disciplined by professional bodies, telling Tortoise: “Isn’t that effectively what we did yesterday?”
We await the Committee’s response with interest.
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3 Comments
Might the whole ‘Honours List” set up be undemocratic and intrinsically corrupt?
Appointment to a second chamber of government should be seen as a job, albeit with negotiable hours, not an honour or reward.
The House of Lords is intrinsically corrupt, because it is a corruption of the principle of separation of powers. In effect, the composition of the Lords is determined by the executive with a number of arbitrary extras, such as those on Johnson’s list. In principle the legislative should be representatives of society and independent of the executive.
Replacing the Lords is a Labour policy that we support, but the history of past attempts do not lead to any optimism for any substantial change. In the meanwhile, Labour has signalled that it will need to increase the number of its working peers because of the egregious post Brexit imbalance created by the Conservatives. Pragmatically we ought to support this and make the case for the replacement of some of our sadly departed representative peers.
It could well be that continuing to inflate its size is the most effective strategy for achieving eventual change to the upper chamber.