How honours became a weapon in political warfare

Even before Sadiq Khan's knighthood was announced in today's honours list, there was anger at the prospect of such an award; a petition circulating among right-wing opponents of the London mayor accrued 200,000 signatures even before Christmas.

- KATE DEVLIN

It has not helped that this year's regular new year honours have come so quickly after the resignation honours of several recent prime ministers, and the news that figures including Keir Starmer's recently ousted Downing Street fixer, Sue Gray, are to receive peerages.

Have knighthoods and peerages always been controversial?

There was outrage in 1916 when William Waldorf Astor, one of the richest men in the world, became Lord Astor as it was felt an American had bought their way into the English aristocracy (even though he gave a lot to charity). In 1925, parliament passed the Honours (Prevention of Abuses) Act.