Will good friend Hugo Swire, rumoured for a knighthood, accept his “honour”? You bet he will! Though this honours list will probably be forever tainted with a rather unpleasant smell, rather like the list of Harold Wilson (nicknamed the “Lavender List”) so many years ago, which is still remembered to this day:
“The list caused controversy as a number of recipients were wealthy businessmen whose principles were considered antithetical to those held by the Labour Party at the time. Roy Jenkins notes that Wilson’s retirement “was disfigured by his, at best, eccentric resignation honours list, which gave peerages or knighthoods to some adventurous business gentlemen, several of whom were close neither to him nor to the Labour Party.”
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976_Prime_Minister%27s_Resignation_Honours
Of the honours today there is a bit of a difference: the disputed honours are those to donors of very large sums to the Conservative party whose tax arrangements have been brought into the spotlight and found wanting and to his “mates”:u
“… BBC political correspondent Iain Watson said there was little doubt the current regime at Downing Street were uncomfortable with the extent of Mr Cameron’s proposed list, but they believe it is for the Cabinet Office and honours committee to pronounce on its propriety …”
East Devon Watch 