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NOTORIOUS spin doctor Lynton Crosby is one of 16 Tory politicians and officials handed gongs today as part of the “discredited” and “laughable” New Year’s honours list.
Prime Minister David Cameron has given his general election campaign director a slap on the back and a knighthood for returning him to Downing Street.
The honour for “political service” comes after Mr Crosby secured the Tories’ re-election by running what was widely viewed as one of the dirtiest election campaigns ever witnessed in Britain.
Labour MP Paul Flynn said the Australian former tobacco lobbyist — dubbed the Lizard of Oz — specialised in selling myths, untruths, exaggeration and distortion of the truth.
“The honours are at best arbitrary and at worst corrupt,” Mr Flynn told the Star.
“This is elevating lobbying as one of the supreme virtues when the whole system of lobbying is about paying to buy influence and power.
“Nobody can take this seriously now. The political honours system are clearly part of a cynical political game. The system is laughable and deserves mockery.”
Mr Cameron has also used the system to thank a dozen more Tory apparatchiks.
Tory MP for North West Suffolk Henry Bellingham, who backed the bedroom tax and voted against equal marriage, is to be knighted.
Marion Little, a Tory campaign specialist, is being rewarded with an OBE for her efforts in the party’s re-election.
Despite the Tories having just one MP in Scotland, the director and treasurer of the party’s Scottish branch are both to be given honours.
Gower Conservative Association chairman Lyndon Richard Jones is also being rewarded for helping win the Welsh seat for the first time in over 100 years.
And in a year when the Tories have been wracked by allegations of bullying, sexual abuse and blackmail, a member of the party’s disciplinary committee, Caroline Roberts, is also to be honoured.
People’s Assembly national secretary Sam Fairbairn said the self-congratulatory gongs were “simply ridiculous” and in “poor taste.”
Labour shadow chief whip Rosie Winterton was among 10 Labour MPs and councillors named on the honours list.
People’s Assembly leader Sam Fairbairn
UNDER the Tory government we have seen attacks on the most poor, sick and vulnerable in society, attacks on trade unions, attacks on the NHS, the rise in homelessness and job insecurity.
All the while the rich get richer and the poor get poorer. Instead of slapping each other on the back, maybe the time would be better spent thinking about the people not themselves.
