Senior MPs and officials who caused trouble or came to blows with Boris Johnson have been recognised in the first New Year Honours list to be published since the ex-prime minister left Downing Street.
Conservative Julian Lewis, chair of parliament’s Intelligence and Security committee, and Labour’s Chris Bryant, chair of the Commons Standards committee, have both been given knighthoods.
And former cabinet secretary Lord Sedwill – who was pushed out after a row with chief of staff Dominic Cummings – has been made a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of St Michael and St George.
Mr Johnson’s own resignation honours, as well as those of his successor Liz Truss, were absent from the list – though the two prime ministers may get their own list approved later in the year.
In 2020 Sir Julian ran against and beat the then-prime minister’s favoured candidate to chair the Intelligence and Security committee – and had the Tory whip withdrawn as a result, though it was later restored.
And Sir Chris has run the standards committee as a fierce critic of Mr Johnson over lockdown parties in Downing Street.
It was the Labour MP who recommended that Tory MP Owen Paterson should be suspended from the Commons – firing the starting gun on a string of sleaze scandals that ultimately ground Mr Johnson’s premiership to a halt and saw him leave No 10.
The Labour MP for Rhondda said he was “very shocked” when he learned he was to be knighted, describing it as an honour for his whole committee.
“I was surprised. I have no idea how this comes about,” he told the PA news agency.
“Everybody told me that [the] Standards committee would be a quiet backwater. It hasn’t felt like that. I try, as does the whole committee, to set party allegiance to one side.
“Obviously the Owen Paterson moment threw a massive boulder in the middle of an icy pond, but I hope the new code of conduct we agreed just before Christmas will set parliament back on the straight and narrow.”
In other honours, Britain’s ambassadors to Ukraine and Russia, Melinda Simmons and Deborah Bronnert, both received damehoods.
Cop26 president Alok Sharma has been knighted, while Conservative former minister Andrew Stephenson, who was Tory party co-chairman in Mr Johnson’s caretaker cabinet over the summer, is made a CBE.
Home Office permanent secretary Matthew Rycroft has receives a knighthood, while Sir Tom Scholar – a top Treasury official forced out ahead of Liz Truss’s disastrous mini-Budget – has also been given a top honour.
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