I hope the PM’s daughter Florence is not counting on an Elsa doll this Christmas: “Darling, look I’ve got you this lovely DBE.” George Osborne’s bichon frisé Lola will be made Companion of Honour; Sam Cam, for services to small leather goods and tense holiday photocalls, becomes a life peer.
And why not? After previously honouring his hairdresser and his hagiographer, Dylan Jones, David Cameron has now bestowed medals upon numerous life-long chums, his diary secretary, man-bag touting media mouth-pieces, constituency manager (for the heroic feat of getting a Conservative elected in west Oxfordshire) and a nice
No 10 catering lady who, we hear, makes a mean sausage sandwich.
Where a hand-written note, a case of wine or a muffin-basket would suffice, the prime minister has treated the honours system like Santa’s sack. David Cameron has always had a regal bearing and now, without Vince Cable pulling a sour face, he can behave like a king: a capricious pre-democratic one, who might knight his ghillie after a particularly exciting boar-hunt or make his catamite an earl.
These dissolution honours are shameless, nepotistic and an undisguised reward for political helpmeets and lavish donors — less “lavender list” than Facebook friends. One can only share the puzzlement of Labour MP John Spellar: is the PM trying to discredit the whole system? To puff it up so hard, wear its respectability so thin, it finally bursts?
Certainly he is destroying the standing of the House of Lords. The only remotely valid argument for an unelected second chamber, that it is brimming with august learning and specialist knowledge, has been wiped out by Cameron’s appointments. In 2010, 30 per cent of the Lords was comprised of ex-politicians and their former staff. But of 189 new peers since, half have been political. And even after squeezing in bra-makers and expenses fiddlers, the Tories need another 40 to have a majority.
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While the government proposes to cut 50 MPs to save costs, the number of peers swells: more than 800 of them dreaming of Downton, claiming £300 a day, googling robes at Ede & Ravenscroft, doodling coats of arms, parlaying titles into directorships, relishing their banana republic right to exercise political power until the day they die.
Could this be the moment that George Osborne, a stout defender of an elected Lords, calculates it might be less grotesque, embarrassing, much cheaper and — given Labour is in tatters — simpler, to get his Tory majority by introducing an AV regional list system? Even if it allows a few Ukip in.
What prestige does the Lords have left when you are sharing a chamber with dumped Lib Dems, a businesswoman, Ruby McGregor-Smith, whose care home company failed to pay the minimum wage, and Andrew Lansley, most famous as the subject of a scurrilous rap? No wonder prime ministers since Baroness Thatcher — and, going further back, Churchill, who despised the Lords — kept well clear: such company tarnishes rather than gilds a great career.
Indeed, these days when introduced to a peer at a dinner party, I find it hard not to curl a lip. What palms did you cross? Who did you sleep with at Oxford? Didn’t you share that holiday villa with Dave and Sam/Tony and Cherie? As they say, “Oh, I never use my title” — so mighty and yet so modest! — I think: Then why take it at all? Because your mum would be proud? Oliver Cromwell was offered the crown of England but without a thought for his mother he turned it down. But a title is the ultimate seduction even for socialists. Georgia Gould, daughter of Labour’s late election guru Philip and publisher Gail Rebuck, asked her parents — a peer and a dame: “But don’t we believe in abolishing the House of Lords?” Hmm, we did . . .
And Sir Danny Alexander! I can’t write this with a straight face. He turned down the Lords because he supports an elected second chamber, so why accept a knighthood? Did he need a memento of power? (Steal an ashtray.) An embellishment to his name to arrest his slide into obscurity? Like TV has-beens who promote themselves for supermarket openings as Craig “First Big Brother winner” Phillips or Ground Force’s Tommy Walsh.
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Ever greater alienation from Westminster is manifested in growing anti-politics: the surge for Ukip and Jeremy Corbyn, a quarter of whose supporters say they believe the “world is controlled by a secretive elite”. How can you dismiss them as paranoid when the deals, cosy friendships and backhanders are right there in the honours list.
So many of those rewarded did only what they were (often highly) paid to do. I’ve spent a few days with Ramesh Chhabra, Osborne’s ex-special adviser. Nice guy; former hack. Efficient, personable, smart, gets the drinks in. But did his services in setting up interviews with journalists like me merit an OBE? Likewise the Downing Street gardener; I’m sure he’s diligent, but — unless he revolutionised herbaceous borders or rescued Nancy Cameron from a terrorist attack — should he get a medal?
Maybe there should be a new honour, which anyone can apply for — from nursing sisters and road cleaners to scientists and chefs — for just hanging in there diligently for years. A DMJ: Did My Job.