Cash For Honours - Previous Instances

Previous Instances

The expression "cash for peerages" has a long history. Titles have constantly been granted to court favorites and allies. James I was more overt; he created the title of baronet and sold them for £1,500 each to raise money for his war in Ireland.

In the 1920s David Lloyd George was involved in a barely concealed "cash for patronage" scandal managed by Maundy Gregory, which resulted in the 1925 Act which barred this (purchase of peerages had not previously been illegal), and in 1976 Harold Wilson's resignation honours list was similarly embroiled in what became known as the "Lavender List" (supposedly hand-written on lavender paper by Marcia Williams). This, though widely deemed to include some unsuitable and unsalubrious nominees, rewarded Wilson's friends and carried no suggestion of overt reward for money — given or loaned. Lord Kagan, ennobled in the Lavender List, was convicted of fraud in 1980 — for some years he had been funding Harold Wilson's Leader's office. Sir Eric Miller, knighted in the Lavender List, committed suicide in 1977 while under investigation for fraud; he too had helped fund Harold Wilson's Leader's office.

In the 1960s, Roy Thomson had some justifiable claim to a peerage as a Canadian and later British publisher. As even his company history observes, "Roy had noted that all proprietors of newspapers seemed to become members of the House of Lords. He had also noted this was emphatically ‘a good thing’" and he showed himself ready to do whatever was required to achieve this goal, believing at first that it could be a simple open purchase but moving on to explicit lobbying of prime ministers. He contributed money to charitable bodies which were deemed to improve his chances. Eventually, having bought The Scotsman, The Sunday Times and later The Times, he became sufficiently important to Harold Wilson that he was "raised to the peerage" as Baron Thomson of Fleet.

As recently as 2004 the issue of large donations to a political party being linked to the award of a peerage arose when Paul Drayson donated £555,000 to the Labour Party. His company, Powderject (now part of Novartis), had also received a valuable government contract to make vaccines.