THERESA May has been accused of “handing out peerages like sweeties” in her resignation honours.
The former Prime Minister has made one of her party’s biggest donors and handed out gongs to most of the key aides and supporters from her disastrous time in office.
May has also handed stand-in Scottish Tory leader Jackson Carlaw a CBE .
The MSP, who is currently interim leader of the party in Holyrood is getting the gong for “political and public service".
However, there was no mention of Ruth Davidson on the list, nor West Aberdeenshire MP Andrew Bowie, who served as her Parliamentary Private Secretary in the Commons.
May’s chief EU negotiator Olly Robbins – blamed by many Tory MPs for her three-times rejected Brexit deal – receives a knighthood.
While the former joint chiefs of staff Nick Timothy and Fiona Hill – who were forced to quit No 10 in the wake of the disastrous 2017 general election – receive CBEs.
Ex-MP Gavin Barwell who went on to be May’s chief of staff – becomes a life peer while David Lidington, seen as her de facto deputy, and ex-No 10 communications chief and former BBC boss Robbie Gibb are knighted.
Tory Party treasurer Ehud Sheleg, who has donated hundreds of thousands of pounds to Tory coffers, receives a knighthood.
Former chief whip Julian Smith – who has since been made Northern Ireland Secretary by Boris Johnson – is made a CBE.
Another close ally, the former trade minister George Hollingbery – who served as May’s parliamentary private secretary in both Downing Street and the Home Office – receives a knighthood.
May’s former political secretary Stephen Parkinson and special advisers Joanna Penn and Elizabeth Sanderson are to become life peers.
There are CBEs for the former Tory chairman Brandon Lewis, No 10 political aides Paul Harrison and Kirsty Buchanan, as well as May’s official spokesman, James Slack, who continues in the same role with Johnson.
The SNP’s Pete Wishart said: “The rotten news that Theresa May has been handing out peerages like sweeties – to the same Tory advisers who got us into this Brexit mess – is the worst kind of cronyism, and demonstrates everything that is wrong with the broken Westminster system.
“It is a disgrace that the Tories are able to give away jobs for the boys, and make their cronies and donors legislators for life – with no democratic mandate or accountability to the people of Scotland and the UK.
“It's no wonder Scotland has been so badly failed by Westminster throughout the Brexit process – when we have no say whatsoever on so many of the legislators making decisions on our behalf.
“Westminster is not working for Scotland. The House of Lords should have been abolished decades ago and the whole rotten system is in desperate need of reform.”
Jeremy Corbyn has nominated three new Labour life peers – ex-National Union of Teachers general secretary Christine Blower, Newport City Council leader Debbie Wilcox, and the employment rights lawyer John Hendy QC.
There will Labour fury at the news Corbyn critic John Mann, who announced at the weekend he was quitting parliament to become a government anti-Semitism “tsar” has been nominated for a non-affiliated life peerage.
The Green Party have nominated former leader Natalie Bennett for a peerage.
There were knighthoods too for cricketers Geoff Boycott and former England cricket captain Andrew Strauss.
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