Officials dealing with Boris Johnson’s honours list proposals say that worse is to come as Liz Truss’s proposals are even more challenging. An insider provided us with the following extract from her suggestions, which have been annotated with notes by an unnamed official:
My Honours List, by Liz, age 47 and 3/4
BEM for the Chairman of the British Cheese Council, because I Love Cheese!
OBE for Instagram. I just love Instagram. Are they British?
OBEs for my schools, Parkcrest Elementary, BC, Canada and Roundhay, Leeds
OBE for Tigger, my role model
OBE for Truss Island in the River Thames. I’ve never been, but it sounds nice
OBE for the Oxford University Lib Dem Society – they made me what I am today
- I don’t think the XPM understands that you can’t give OBEs to things. I’ll speak.
Ten OBEs awarded to people called Truss by lottery.
- There is already a process for randomly distributing honours – it’s called the Honours Committee
CBE for The Rt Hon Mark Field. I can’t say why.
- Well, this beats Boris trying to ennoble his Dad
Companion of Honour for my husband, as it’s an honour for him to be my companion
Royal Victorian Order – Jacob Rees Mogg – seems appropriate
Privy Council – Peter Bottomley. Because that would be quite funny. Privy – Bottom. Geddit?
- Groan
George Cross for me, as I was very brave and heroic when I was PM
- The committee may take a different view.
And also -
A statue of me in Eltham South (subject to donor funding), commemorating my election as a councillor
- I expect that we will have to give Eltham South extra money to keep the statue clean and egg free. I don't suppose that the donors will want to pay for that.
A metro mayor for Narnia – Mr Tumnus, perhaps?
- First Tigger and now Mr Tumnus. Awards for fictional characters will be a first, but could turn out to be popular
Kwasi Kwarteng – freedom of the city of Mariupol or any of the places featured in the Crap Towns book
Henry, please can you circulate the original email for comments. I’d like to know how many of my colleagues are reckless enough to support any of this nonsense. Q
H/T Sully
Image: lourdesnique | Pixabay
Leadership Contest – “The first I knew about being a part of the leadership contest was when my Chief Adviser pulled off a fake nose and glasses and revealed himself to be Michael McIntyre asking me to be the Unexpected Star of his show.”
Campaign Brutality –“The leadership campaign turned out to be as brutal as my husband had feared. I ran out of original, pre-watershed metaphors for ‘entitled wanker’.”
Energy Bills –“As a matter of urgency, I dealt with the issue of energy bills. How was I to know Invoicium Redigendum wouldn’t work?”
OBR Forecasts –“I come from the Michael Fish era of forecasting, so excuse me if I was reluctant to go to the Delphi budgeteers! Mind you, in hindsight, I should have checked to see whether Kwasi had ever written the words ‘budget’ and ‘responsibility’ in the same sentence before.”
Corporation Tax –“Why on Earth would I raise Corporation Tax. There are people’s wages that are taxable, and there are far more people in the UK than there are businesses – especially after Brexit!”
Mini-Budget Reaction –“There were positive reactions from many quarters. Brenda Smethwick, a dinner lady in my WI said it was “Very nice, dear”; and the bloke down my local doner kebab van said “If you say so, love”.”
Markets Collapse –“At no point during any of the preparations for the mini-budget had any concerns about liability-driven investments (LDIs) and the risk they posed to bond markets been mentioned at all to me, the chancellor or any of our teams by officials at the Treasury. For God’s sake, there are only two occupations you can swan into without any training whatsoever, and they are Estate Agents and MPs. What the hell are we supposed to know!?! I thought an LDI was a type of Lexus.”