A terrible scourge is permeating Rishi Sunak’s Britain and it’s not just tidal waves of Therese Coffey-sponsored sewage water, it’s an exponential growth in absolutely embarrassing honours lists.

In what now seems like a bygone age, knighthoods and honours lists recipients used to be drawn from a deep reservoir of talent, national achievement and outstanding contribution to a particular area. Now it seems to be handed out more casually than a LinkedIn skill endorsement.

Boris Johnson’s recent honours list must be scrapped because it caters to this trope. It includes Channel 4 ‘expert’ Nadine Dorries, Cop26 crier Alok Sharma and Nigel Adams (who?…We’ll get to that). 

Ok, let’s go into a bit more detail. Dorries was the Secretary of State for Digital, Culture, Media and Sport from 15 September 2021 to 6 September 2022 and seemingly Boris Johnson’s bodyguard simultaneously, don’t listen to anyone who says that MPs can’t have second jobs! She defended him at every stage of the Partygate scandal as well as every criticism of him in general. 

She demonstrated no demonstrable talent, with cack-handed select committee appearances in which she couldn’t describe the TV Channel she wanted to privatise and underwent lacklustre broadcasting stints on TalkTV, not that Piers Morgan sets the bar high either. It’s hard to believe an individual so corrupted by cronyism is on track for King Charles to pass a ceremonial sword over her shoulders, besides this could have been done by the Minister for Sword Holding, Penny Mordaunt.

Alok Sharma was president of the Cop26 climate conference in which little progress has been made since, however, he has strayed slightly away from towing the party line, as he generally voted for a wholly elected House of Lords as well as the removal of hereditary peers, so credit where credit is due. Want to know what all that even means? We have you covered. However, They Work for You states “Alok Sharma is a Conservative MP, and on the vast majority of issues votes the same way as other Conservative MPs”. Needless to say, that’s enough ammunition for us plus he wasn’t exactly condemning Johnson at his worst.

And lastly, Nigel Adams was born in Goole so it’s only natural his birthplace name carried over into his political ambitions. According to his voting record on They Work for You he has generally voted against more EU integration and replacing Trident with a new nuclear weapons system (because more nukes are good).    

Now compare this to the calibre of people that received knighthoods in the past such as Daniel Day-Lewis, David Attenborough and Elton John, and more importantly to the calibre of people that have rejected them over the years: David Bowie, Stephen Hawking and John Cleese. I contend or hypothesise rather, that the increase in awarding of knighthoods has decreased their value (knighthood inflation). It seems to the people that reject them are now the honourable, nationally treasured few.     

Pure factos (Flourish)

It’s important to stress that honours lists can be outright rejected at the discretion of the Prime Minister himself. Everyone here at Punching Up implores everyone with a brain to petition and protest this honours list in any conceivable way possible. If Tony Blair can get a massive pushback on being given most senior knighthood in the 2022 new year honours list then surely this crap crop of cronies can be outright rejected by the public as well. There is already mounting pressure for Sunak to tear the plans up before they come to fruition so a little backlash goes a long way.