MPS who clashed with Boris Johnson, a senior civil servant who was controversially sacked by Liz Truss and a former royal aide who made a bullying complaint against the Duchess of Sussex are among the recipients of New Year Honours.
Knighthoods have been given to politicians who were thorns in the side of Johnson, including Labour’s Chris Bryant, who chairs the Commons Standards Committee, and Tory Julian Lewis, chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee, who called for the then Prime Minister to be replaced.
There is also a prestigious honour for former Treasury permanent secretary Sir Tom Scholar, who becomes a Knight Grand Cross of the Order of the Bath having been summarily sacked by short-lived prime minister Truss on her first day in office.
Meanwhile former royal aide Jason Knauf, who made a bullying complaint against the Duchess of Sussex, is among those appointed to the Royal Victorian Order.
These are honours which are in the King’s gift and bestowed independently of Downing Street to people who have served the monarch or the royal family in a personal way.
When working for the Duke and Duchess of Sussex as their communications secretary in October 2018, Knauf emailed his concerns about Meghan to William’s then-private secretary, in an apparent attempt to force Buckingham Palace to protect staff.
The duchess’s legal team have in the past strenuously denied the allegation.
In the Sussexes’ recent Netflix documentary series, Meghan’s lawyer claimed the former aide – who later worked for the then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge - could not have given evidence in the duchess’s copyright lawsuit against a newspaper publisher “without the authority of his bosses”.
The New Year Honours list also sees Queen guitarist Brian May and artist Grayson Perry knighted.
England football captain Leah Williamson is among four of the country’s Euro 2022-winning side to be named in the list, being made an OBE while her teammates Lucy Bronze, Beth Mead and Ellen White are all made MBEs.
The team’s Dutch head coach Sarina Wiegman also joins the party, after the Foreign Office made her an honorary CBE.
The decision to only recognise several members of the England women’s football squad following their Euros triumph was questioned after previous lists honoured all members of triumphant national teams.
Asked why not all the Lionesses were included, Sir Hugh Robertson, chairman of the honours sports committee, told a press conference: “The approach that we’ve tried to take with this is when we have these events there is a danger in sort of carpet bombing the entire squad because then you get people who’ve done five minutes on the pitch and get an award.
“So what we’ve tried to do is stick to the principle of the honours system which is to recognise excellence and to recognise extraordinary contributions.”
Elsewhere in sport, Olympic heptathlon gold medallist Denise Lewis, now the president of Commonwealth Games England, is made a dame, while in showbiz, actor Stephen Graham is made an OBE and comedian Frank Skinner an MBE.
Senior diplomats at the forefront of the UK’s response to the war in Ukraine have been included in the mix with damehoods for Melinda Simmons, ambassador in Kyiv, and Deborah Bronnert, ambassador in Moscow.
Others who worked on the UK’s response to Russia’s invasion have also been recognised, including Dr Paul Ransom, an emergency consultant, as well as Louenna Hood, a nanny from Cambridgeshire, who organised container loads of essentials to go directly to those fleeing the war-torn country.
This year’s list, which is the first published since the Queen’s death and the first to be signed off by King Charles, includes a total of 1,107 recipients – 50% of whom are women.
The youngest to be honoured is Dara McAnulty, 18, from Annalong, County Down, who receives a BEM for his environmental work and work with people with Autism Spectrum Disorder.
And the oldest is 100-year-old Peter Davies, from Bollington, in Cheshire, who is also be awarded a BEM for his work as a reading volunteer at Dean Valley Community Primary School.
Chief Rabbi Ephraim Mirvis, who has been knighted, is among a handful of Jewish community leaders to be recognised, also including the president of the Board of Deputies of British Jews, Marie van der Zyl, and several Holocaust survivors.
Countdown presenter Rachel Riley is made an MBE in recognition of efforts to raise awareness of the Holocaust and combat antisemitism.
