“Labour has handed out honours to a motley crew of woke failures, including the Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police, the ex-CEO of NHS England and the Director-General of the National Trust,” posted Conservative peer Baron Young of Acton on X, reacting to the new year’s honours.
Young was among a host of right wing figures piling into the annual gongs, inevitably dubbed by the Daily Mail as being for “services for woke”. Chief Constable of West Yorkshire Police John Robins was attacked for attempts to promote under-represented ethnic groups in his force, the former chief executive of NHS England Amanda Pritchard presided over the body’s abolition, while the director-general of the National Trust, Hilary McGrady, was mocked over the introduction of vegan tampons.
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Still, all are arguably more worthy of baubles than a man who was parachuted into the House of Lords to make the nation’s laws until the day he dies on the basis of an underwhelming journalism career, a gobby social media presence and a whole week as a non-executive member of the board of the Office for Students.
That same man also only got into Oxford University after a helpful call to the admissions tutor from his father, also a life peer, after he scraped a B, B and C at A-Level. That man is, of course, Toby Young, Baron Young of Acton.
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