If nothing became Boris Johnson more than the manner of his leaving No 10, nothing says more about the political rot he accelerated than the honours list that trails behind him and his announcement on Friday night that he will quit parliament having been told he faces ignominious suspension.
To scan the list that was perhaps his final act in frontline politics is to relive the era of cronyism and maladministration that he inflicted on the country. It redefined the very idea of honours as a reward for public service, replacing it with the sort of cheap favour you bestow on friends by buying them a seaside hat or a round in the pub.
Priti Patel, who took the Tory hostile environment badge of shame and wore it as a badge of honour, who as home secretary presided over a degradation of policing that has become a crisis of public trust, becomes a dame. Jacob Rees-Mogg, chief apologist for the chaos and deficiencies of the Johnson years in government, gets a knighthood.
Amid the continuing search for answers as to why the response of his administration to Covid was so poor, Johnson unveils a list containing honours and preferment for some of his aides who allegedly joined him at No 10 in ignoring the safety rules they had imposed on the rest of the population. If they partied then, they will party even harder now.
A damehood for arch Brexiteer Andrea Marie Jenkyns, Tory MP, former assistant whip, under-secretary for skills and Johnson enthusiast. What exceptional form does her public service take in our democracy to see her singled out for an honour?
Last year as education minister, her response to a group exercising their right to protest outside No 10 was to show them her middle finger. She shed a tear last summer as Johnson resigned from No 10. She’ll feel better now as a dame, if a little teary for him again as he flounces away completely.
A knighthood for Michael Fabricant, another disciple of the Johnson religion, who served as the administration’s equivalent of Comical Ali, Saddam Hussein’s much derided and deluded minister of information, who was always ready to challenge facts with alternative narratives.
Fabricant deserves his elevation solely for the effort he made to save Johnson from Partygate disgrace. “These were people who had been working 18 hours a day and one thing about Boris, if he’s got a fault, it’s that he’s too loyal to the people who work around him, and he understood how tense and tired they were,” he said at the time. Johnson is loyal, until he is not.
He was all rage while announcing his resignation, braying at those who might hold him culpable for his behaviour. In the aftermath, many will examine his honours list and the question they should ask is this: did all of these people serve the public, or did too many serve the progress and interests of Boris Johnson? Any cursory examination of his time in office will show that the two imperatives were not the same.
We may soon know why his father Stanley did not make the list, despite wide speculation that he might do so. And we can be relieved that Nadine Dorries, who rose high in Johnson’s administration without anyone but him ever knowing what was her intrinsic value to public administration, was also omitted. Relieved that – with “immediate effect” – she has stepped down as an MP.
He joins her in exile, his epitaph a disheartening list, a shoddy list. But it is his list, and every bit him.
Hugh Muir is a Guardian columnist
