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Them and us......they are all in it together......out of touch big time...
David Cameron accused of cronyism over New Year Honours list
Award recipients include long-serving MPs and Tory party donors
David Cameron is facing accusations of cronyism after a succession of senior Conservatives and supporters of the party were recognised in the New Year Honours list.
The roll call of awards for serving the nation included senior aides to the late Baroness Thatcher, long-serving MPs, Tory stalwarts in the Prime Minister's Oxfordshire heartland, two Tory donors and a public relations chief who has holidayed with Mr Cameron.
It also featured the star of The Apprentice, Karren Brady, who is appointed CBE for services to entrepreneurship and encouraging women in business. She is being wooed by the Tories to become a MP in 2015 or to stand as Mayor of London the following year.
Labour MP John Mann said: "It's inappropriate to use the honours system for political patronage. That's what's happening - everyone can see that. It is demeaning for David Cameron to use his position as Prime Minister like this."
The row threatened to overshadow a shift in the distribution of the awards, which saw the number of women receiving a gong outnumber men for the first time in the modern era of the honours system, which began in 1917 with the advent of the OBE. Of the 1,195 people named in the list, 51 per cent are women, compared to 40 years ago when the figure was just 17 per cent. As recently as 2004, the number of women receiving honours stood at barely a third of the total.