ALL GONG WRONG

Donors awarded, Burrow snubbed , Truss showers. cronies with titles

- DAVE BURKE

AN honours system meant to reward selflessness and heroism has yet again been tarnished by the dishing out of gongs for a string of Tory donors and cronies.

Rugby league legends Kevin Sinfield and Rob Burrow, who have raised more than £15million for motor neurone disease, miss out on knighthoods while the fatcats who lavish Rishi Sunak's party with cash are given accolades.

Downing Street also slipped out Liz Truss's resignation honours at the same time. The shameless former PM showered honours on 11 cronies one for every four-and-a-half days she was in Downing Street.

A long list of tycoons were named as Sirs and Dames in the New Year Honour's List. They include Addison Lee taxi mogul John Griffin, who has handed more than £4m to the Tories and Wetherspoon boss and Brexit supporter Tim Martin. He gave the party £50,000 in 2019.

Ms Truss' honours list sparked fury, after she crashed the economy in her short time at No10, saddling struggling households with huge increases in mortgage payments.

Shadow Cabinet Office Minister Jonathan Ashworth said: "This list is proof of Rishi Sunak's weakness and a slap in the face to working people who are paying the price of the Tories crashing the economy.

"Honours should be for those committed to public service, not rewards for Tory failure. Rather than apologise for driving up mortgages rates, Rishi Sunak has nodded through these tarnished gongs because he is too weak to lead a party completely out of touch with working people.