Sharron Davies joins the pool of Tory peers

Kemi Badenoch’s appointments to the House of Lords have so far reflected her reputation as a culture warrior, including Toby Young, the boorish right wing columnist, and his fellow Free Speech Unionist and theologian Nigel Biggar.

Now she’s adding another to the Tory benches in the second chamber – the former Olympic swimmer and Big Breakfast presenter Sharron Davies, who has devoted much time in recent years to campaigning against trans athletes in women’s sport.

Davies was an enthusiastic backer of Badenoch’s leadership campaigp0l0ln last year, posting on X that she was “a fresh, brave & intelligent woman who’s prepared to tackle issues head on so many have ignored for too long, total transparency & integrity”.

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But while the swimmer is well known for her gender-critical views, she has also flirted with the hard right notion that “15-minute cities” – an urban planning concept where residents can access most of their daily needs within a 15-minute walk or bike ride from their homes – is actually a wicked ploy by globalists to confine normal people to their homes.

Last year she shared an X post on the topic by Wide Awake Media – nothing to do with Timmy Mallett, but a major voice for climate denialism on the platform – adding: “I’m so not up for 15 min communities. It will not work for families with active kids doing all sorts of activities. And whilst the little people get to live confined with little choice those in the WEF [World Economic Forum] fly in their jets & on their yachts telling ‘the people’ to reduce their lives. Who voted for these globalists?”. And who, indeed, voted for Sharron Davies?

Badenoch has also nominated two other Tory peers. Simon ‘Hefferlump’ Heffer, the Daily Telegraph writer and prominent supporter of Badenoch, finally gets a peerage, despite writing in 2020 that “with over 800 members, the House is the second biggest chamber in the world. No-one, even [Boris] Johnson himself, pretends the Lords needs such large forces to carry out its revising function”. Telegraph journalists will hope that his new role will deny him the time to write the emails quibbling about grammar he still insists on constantly sending.

Heffer also wrote of peerages that year that “lately they have too often been dished out to cronies, donors and placemen”. On a completely unrelated note, Badenoch’s third nomination is Graham Edwards, the Conservative treasurer, who has helped her prop up the party’s finances after its disastrous defeat last year. Figures released in June revealed that the Tories raised £3.3 million in the first quarter of the year.