This is a tradition in the UK. On their departure from Downing Street, the British heads of government draw up a "list of honours", with the names of the people they wish to see knighted. But on former Prime Minister Boris Johnson's list, one name particularly ticks the opposition. It is that of his own father, Stanley Johnson, reported The Times newspaper on Monday.
According to The Times, the list of Boris Johnson, who left the government in September, forced to resign after a series of scandals, has a hundred names. It would thus be much longer than that of his predecessors Theresa May and David Cameron, which included about sixty people.
The information, which has not been confirmed either by Boris Johnson's entourage or by the government, has fueled accusations of nepotism regularly targeting the Conservative Party in power and in particular the former leader, whose press regularly evokes the desire to return to power.
Accusation of sexual harassment and domestic violence
It greatly angered Labour opposition leader Keir Starmer. "It's ridiculous," he told LBC radio. "An ex-prime minister bestows honours on his father – for what services rendered?" "That's classic coming from a man like Johnson. I believe that for the public, it is just absolutely outrageous," he criticized.
The presence in this list of Stanley Johnson is all the more shocking since, as mentioned by The Times, he was accused of sexual harassment and also domestic violence against Boris Johnson's mother in the 1970s. This former member of the European Parliament, who became pro-Brexit, obtained French nationality in May 2022. In 2020, Boris Johnson, then Prime Minister, had already appointed his brother Jo to sit in the House of Lords, the upper house of the British Parliament.
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