It’s usually claimed that within the Home of Lords “all human life is there”.
And the most recent record of latest friends contains an Olympic swimmer, and the girl who helped Sir Keir Starmer after he had glitter thrown at him at a Labour convention.
In a widely-predicted transfer, the prime minister is sending 25 new Labour lords and women to parliament’s higher home in a bid to curb a giant Tory majority.
Picture:Labour claims David Cameron appointed 122 friends in two years. File pic: Home of Lords/UK Parliament/PA
The Conservatives have been given simply three, together with Sharron Davies, the ladies’s rights campaigner and Olympic silver medallist. The Liberal Democrats been been given 5.
Labour claims that David Cameron appointed 122 friends in two years. Sir Keir, with 62 thus far, is clearly plotting the tip of the peer present for the Tories.
The ‘club’ with a £371-a-day allowance
The brand new friends are becoming a member of what’s been known as “the best club in the world”, with all the trimmings of opulence and luxurious, to not point out a £371-a-day attendance allowance.
Even earlier than the announcement from Downing Road, the Tories had already condemned the brand new appointments as “more cronyism and more reward for failure”.
Critics will level to the peerages for Labour Get together and authorities spin medical doctors, native authorities worthies from London, and a high-profile defector from the Tories.
The Labour staffer rewarded for coming to Sir Keir’s rescue after a glitter assault on the 2023 Labour convention is Carol Linforth, the occasion’s former operations chief.
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1:33Labour chief coated in glitter by protester
The one massive identify from the enterprise world is a controversial alternative. Iceland Meals boss Richard Walker was a would-be Tory MP who defected to Labour in 2023.
However the cronyism cost arises out of the peerages for no fewer than 5 native authorities figures from London, an ex-MEP and three former Labour spin medical doctors.
Matthew Doyle, a Labour spinner underneath Alastair Campbell within the Tony Blair years, returned to No 10 as director of communications after working for Sir Keir in opposition.
Katie Martin, as soon as a Downing Road press officer, was latterly chief of workers to Rachel Reeves.
“Katie Martin has been my most trusted adviser for nearly five years,” the chancellor stated final month.
Kemi Badenoch’s nomination of Sharron Davies sends a sign that she strongly backs her high-profile campaigning on trans and gender points.
Picture:Former Olympian Sharron Davies and ex-chief-of-staff to Rachel Reeves, Katie Martin. Pics: PA
She turns into probably the most high-profile sports activities star despatched to the Lords since Lord “Beefy” Botham was despatched to knock opponents for six by Boris Johnson in 2020.
Davies spoke at this autumn’s Conservative convention in Manchester in a session on gender points during which the panel was heckled by London Meeting member Andrew Boff.
And final month, she known as on Olympic bosses to toughen up plans to ban transgender athletes, and declared: “I’ve never been anti-trans in my life. I’m just pro-female.”
The opposite new Tory friends are the veteran Euro-sceptic Sir John Redwood, former MP for Wokingham, who challenged John Main for the Conservative management in 1995, and the right-wing Each day Mail and Sunday Telegraph columnist Simon Heffer.
The 5 Lib Dems embrace Sarah Teather, a former MP and junior minister within the Cameron-Clegg coalition authorities, and two former hereditary friends.
Defending the appointments, a Labour supply claimed that even now the Conservatives will nonetheless be the biggest occasion within the Lords “by far”.
And proper on cue, inside minutes of the No 10 announcement, the federal government suffered a defeat but once more on the Employment Rights Invoice, however 244 votes to 220, a majority of 24.
Had their 25 new Labour friends been capable of vote, the federal government may need defeated the mixed opposition of Conservatives, Lib Dems and crossbenchers by one vote.
