Charlotte Owen is set to become the youngest nominated peer after being handed a gong by Boris Johnson at the tender age of 29.
The former prime minister’s honours list, which also handed a damehood to Priti Patel and knighthoods to Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Fabricant, has attracted a host of criticism with accusations of cronyism being thrown at Johnson.
A parliamentary hairdresser and an adviser to Carrie Johnson were given honours for their contributions to British society, as some called into question the threshold to merit the ennoblement.
LinkedIN vs reality
One name that has attracted attention is Charlotte Owen, who will now become Baroness Owen after just under six years in parliament.
According to her LinkedIn page, she worked as a constituency intern for Tory MP William Wragg for one month before working as a parliamentary intern to Boris Johnson for six months.
She then took a role exclusively working for the former prime minister for a year and two months, becoming a special adviser to both Johnson and Liz Truss during her short tenure as PM.
But Tortoise reports suggest the page could be misleading.
She states that she worked as a special adviser for Johnson from February 2021 until October 2022, but she is not named alongside others in Number 10 in the annual report on special advisers published in June 2021.
She is named in the same report from a subsequent year as working half for the prime minister and half for then chief whip Chris Heaton-Harris.
Two former Number 10 insiders told Tortoise her public profile did not match up with reality.
“Completely staggering”
One said: “It is not what she says on her LinkedIn. She never worked in the policy unit. She was promoted very heavily by Nigel Adams [the former minister who resigned as an MP last week]… but there were dozens of people more senior than her.”
They added: “It is completely staggering – her peerage is one of the most strange and hardest to explain because she was so extraordinarily junior.”
A second source added: “Charlotte’s peerage is just so absurd… She joined in March 2022, she never worked in the policy unit… at the very least there is an inconsistency in what she’s saying.”
They added: “She wasn’t even the most important person in the political office, that is the odd part.”
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