Labour MPs angle for peerages in return for giving up their seats
Lobby journalists are being briefed today on the New Year's Honours List which includes a smattering of medalists from the Beijing Olympics but few gongs for the City's Masters of the Universe who got us into the current financial mess.
However, MPs are more interested in whether Big Gordon is going to have a Dissolution Honours List which could give them a lift up to the House of Lords should the PM decide to call a General Election in 2009.
In the wake of the 'donations for peerages' scandal, Tony Blair wisely decided against a Resignation Honours List in 2007. But in 2005, before the last General Election, he ennobled loyalists including former cabinet ministers Jack Cunningham, Ann Taylor and Chris Smith in his Dissolution Honours List.
It is expected that Gordon Brown will use his right, as his predecessors have done, to announce a Dissolution Honours List at the General Election to make room in a few safe Labour seats for some of the bright young things who hold the future of the party in their hands.
A long list of Labour MPs have already announced they are quitting, including John Prescott, Blair's former Deputy Prime Minister, who is the Mole's top tip for a seat in the Lords in spite of all his bluster in the past about the unelected Upper House.
The list of retirees among the Labour MPs (see below) will rob the Commons of some of its more colourful characters, including the irrepressible QC, Bob Marshall Andrews - who announced at the last election that he had lost his seat shortly before he was confirmed as the victor - and Clare Short, the MP for Birmingham Ladywood, who is now officially independent, but is still Labour to her boots. The departures will change the face of the Commons.
But the Mole hears that a handful of other Labour MPs are biding their time, and may quit shortly before Gordon fires the starting pistol in order to lay down their safe Labour seats in return for a seat-for-life in the House of Lords.
There are always young thrusting researchers, special advisers, union fixers or apparatchiks who need a safe seat at the last minute. So look out for ageing Labour MPs, particularly with northern seats, who suddenly decide in 2009 to call it a day. And then check out the list of the lucky ones who get the ermine after Brown goes to the country.
Labour MPs who have announced they are retiring at the next election: John Austin - Erith and Thamesmead; John Battle - Leeds West; Richard Caborn - Sheffield Central; Colin Challon - Morley & Outwood; Michael Clapham - Barnsley West & Penistone (abolished); Ann Cryer – Keighley; John Cummings - Easington; Janet Dean - Burton; Bill Etherington - Sunderland North, Fraser Kemp - Houghton and Washington East; Neil Gerrard - Walthamstow; John Grogan - Selby and Ainsty; Keith Hill - Streatham; Brian Iddon - Bolton South-East; Lynne Jones - Birmingham Selly Oak; David Lepper - Brighton Pavilion; Rosemary McKenna - Cumbernauld, Kilsyth and Kirkintilloch East; Bob Marshall Andrews - Medway; Christine McCafferty - Calder Valley; Chris Mullin - Sunderland South; Doug Naysmith - Bristol North West; Bill Olner - Nuneaton; John Prescott - Hull East; Ken Purchase - Wolverhampton North East; John Reid - Airdrie and Shotts; Mohammed Sarwar - Glasgow Central; Alan Simpson - Nottingham South; Gavin Strang - Edinburgh East; David Taylor - Leicestershire North West; Mark Todd - Derbyshire South; Des Turner - Brighton Kemptown; Rudi Vis - Finchley and Golders Green; Betty Williams – Aberconwy; Alan Williams - Swansea West.
THE MOLE: HONOURS
FIRST POSTED DECEMBER 30, 2008
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