New Year Honours: Lionesses and Brian May honoured by the King
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Captain Leah Williamson is among four of England’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.
Musician and animal welfare campaigner Sir Brian, who famously played God Save The Queen on the roof of Buckingham Palace during the Golden Jubilee before performing again at the Platinum Jubilee two decades later, has been appointed a knight bachelor for services to music and charity.
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Hide AdThe astrophysicist, who also made a surprise appearance in Portsmouth during a performance of We Will Rock You at the Kings Theatre this year, said: ‘I regard it as a kind of charge, like a kind of commission to do the things that one would expect a knight to do – to fight for justice, to fight for people who don’t have any voice.’
Others to receive knighthoods include politicians who proved to be thorns in the side of Boris Johnson, including Conservative Julian Lewis, chairman of the parliamentary Intelligence and Security Committee (ISC), and Labour’s Chris Bryant, who chairs the Commons Standards Committee.
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 Liz Truss on her first day in office.
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.
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Hide AdFormer royal aide Jason Knauf, who made a bullying complaint against the Duchess of Sussex, is among those appointed to the Royal Victorian Order (RVO), 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.
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.
Ms Hood, who will receive a British Empire Medal (BEM), said she is ‘completely stunned’, adding: “I started the campaign but I would never have been able to do it without the community.”
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Hide AdThis year’s list, which is the first published since the Queen’s death and the first to be signed off by her son the King, includes a total of 1,107 recipients – 50 prew cent 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.
Themes reflected in the list of recipients include sustained public service, youth engagement and support for environmental and climate change action.
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.
Sir Ephraim said he is ‘enormously honoured and deeply humbled’, adding: ‘It will be particularly moving for me to receive this award from His Majesty the King, in his first year as our monarch.’
Countdown presenter Rachel Riley is made an MBE in recognition of her efforts to raise awareness of the Holocaust and combat antisemitism.