A FORMER aide to Boris Johnson has become the youngest life peer in British history after officially being sworn into the unelected chamber.
Charlotte Owen was nominated to the Lords in the former prime minister’s controversial resignation honours list released in June.
The 30-year-old will be known as Baroness Owen of Alderley Edge and will sit as a Conservative life peer – meaning she will have the chance to influence UK law for decades.
Johnson’s resignation honours caused quite a stir, with a parliamentary hairdresser, Michael Fabricant MP, and former home secretary Priti Patel among some of the other allies of Johnson handed gongs.
And the stir has continued with Stephen Flynn MP, the SNP’s Westminster leader, writing on Twitter: “They’re laughing at us.”
They’re laughing at us. https://t.co/Hgy6dP9dEy
— Stephen Flynn MP (@StephenFlynnSNP) July 24, 2023
Paul Waugh, chief political commentator at the i newspaper, noted: “Boris Johnson's former aide, Charlotte Owen becomes a peer. She is 30, and as the oath says her peerage is literally ‘for her life’, she could be in the Lords for SIXTY YEARS.”
Jonny Mercer, the minister for veterans’ affairs, said: “We don’t want Parliament to become like The Inbetweeners.”
This led to Starmer saying that Mercer’s a “silly sod” who will “soon be history”.
WHAT DID CHARLOTTE OWEN DO TO GET THE PEERAGE?
Owen was born in 1993 and attended the University of York, graduating with a 2:1 in politics and international relations in 2015.
Owen started her career as an intern at Portland, a strategic communications consultancy, before becoming a constituency intern for Tory MP William Wragg.
She then secured a position as a parliamentary intern to Boris Johnson for six months, followed by a seven-month tenure as a parliamentary assistant to Alok Sharma.
Owen then served as a senior parliamentary assistant to Jake Berry and Johnson for one year and nine months, before working for the former prime minister full-time for an additional year and two months.
She was also an advisor for Johnson and then Liz Truss – during her short reign as prime minister – spanning February 2021 to October 2022.
“She’s had a few jobs in Parliament,” Sky News’s Liz Bates said. One of those was working for Boris Johnson.
“She did in the end work for the Number 10 policy unit. And I think at the end of her political career she was working for Liz Truss and the chief whip at the time. Not an illustrious political career by any stretch, but she will go to the House of Lords as well.”
