Top Tory donor handed peerage – but former Daily Mail boss Paul Dacre misses out

Former Labour MP Tom Watson and ex-DUP leader Arlene Foster on list to enter Lords

Dacre had been tipped to receive a peerage (Getty)

Major Conservative donor Michael Hintze is set to enter the House of Lords after he was named among dozens of political figures on the latest honours list.

Mr Hintze, a British-Australian businessman, has given around £4.5m to the Tory party and Tory candidates since 2002.

Paul Dacre, the former editor of the Daily Mail who remains editor-in-chief of the newspaper’s publisher DMG Media, is not on the list – despite previously being tipped to receive the honour.

But former Labour MP Tom Watson, who was deputy leader of the party under Jeremy Corbyn, will get a peerage after being nominated by leader Sir Keir Starmer.

Mr Watson is believed to have been previously rejected over his support for allegations of a Westminster paedophile ring made by the fantasist Carl Beech, later jailed.

The head of the Lords Appointments Commission is said to have written to both Liz Truss and Sir Keir about the choice of some nominees in recent years putting his team in an “increasingly uncomfortable” position.

A total of 26 figures are expected to don the ermine robes in the upper chamber as part of the latest honours list. The peerages were conferred by the King on recommendation from Ms Truss, further to advice from Mr Johnson.

Northern Ireland’s former first minister Arlene Foster and former Tory MP Sir Nicholas Soames – Sir Winston Churchill’s grandson – are among others set to enter the Lords.

But former culture secretary Nadine Dorries is not on the latest list, despite reports in the summer that Boris Johnson was considering a peerage for his most loyal minister.

Others to have made it onto the list this year having been initially nominated by Mr Johnson include former Tory minister Sir Hugo Swire, as well as ex-MP Angie Bray.

Graham Evans, who lost his Commons seat in 2017 in Weaver Vale, enters the Lords. Stewart Jackson, another former MP and a special adviser at the Department for Exiting the EU, also gets a peerage.

Frances O’Grady, general secretary of the Trades Union Congress (TUC), will be made a peer after being nominated by Labour, alongside Ruth Smeeth, a former Labour MP for Stoke-on-Trent North.

Peter Weir, a former education minister in Northern Ireland, will enter the Lords after being nominated by the DUP, while chairman of Network Rail Sir Peter Hendy has also been nominated as a crossbench peer.

Sir Nicholas was expelled from the Conservatives by Mr Johnson for rebelling on Brexit.

Dame Arlene, who was forced out as leader of the DUP last year, will sit as a non-affiliated peer.