Liz Truss’s Honours List & William Cobbett’s Old Corruption
Liz Truss, who was Prime Minister for 49 days in the autumn of 2022, has drawn up a resignation honours list. It is much briefer than Johnson’s resignation list and was slipped out at the same time as New Year’s Honours to avoid scrutiny
Even so, and not unexpectedly, the names on the original list (nine months ago) reveal a high level of cronyism.
Before the 1832 Reform Act which started the long process of establishing the Parliamentary Democracy we know today, there existed what William Cobbett referred to as Old Corruption or ‘The Thing’.
In this pre-democratic political world advancement and honours were handed out not on the basis of merit but rather to reward someone for favours done.
The original names on Truss’s list appeared to fall very much within this framework:
Mark Littlewood, Head of the Institute of Economic Affairs, which provided the ideological basis for Truss’s efforts to crash the economy last autumn. The two have known each other since Oxford University days. His name was vetoed by the House of Lords Committee that checks if honours are appropriate
Matthew Elliott, CEO of Vote Leave, he founded the Taxpayers Alliance and worked for Truss before she became PM
Jon Moynihan, a prominent Brexiteer who gave £20,000 to Truss’s campaign to become Tory leader and PM
A few other hangers on and sycophants got lesser honours. Typically for the graceless Truss the one thing worthy of an honour from her brief reign of terror, the lettuce, got nothing
Truss thinks the above should sit in the House of Lords, and Sunak has eventually agreed, one good reason to hasten its abolition
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