Senior Labour MP Emily Thornberry and Sadiq Khan, the mayor of London, are among a number of politicians named in the New Year Honours list.
Thornberry said she was “both honoured and surprised” to have been made a dame.
Khan said it was already the “honour of my life to serve the city I love” and that he was “truly humbled” to have been made a knight.
Conservatives Andy Street, the ex-West Midlands mayor, and Nick Gibb, the former long-serving schools minister, also received knighthoods.
Dame Emily told the Press Association: “My husband was knighted a few years ago and I never felt comfortable sharing his title, calling myself ‘Lady Nugee’, but Dame Emily is a name I’d be proud to go by.”
She added: “I think of my grandmothers, neither of whom were even allowed to work as married women, and think how utterly delighted they’d be to see this.”
Dame Emily has served as MP for Islington South since 2005 and is now chairwoman of the Commons Foreign Affairs Committee. She was not included in Sir Keir Starmer’s first Cabinet after Labour’s general election victory.
She is now a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
Foreign Secretary David Lammy congratulated Sir Sadiq, saying that he was proud that the UK was “a place where you can go from being the son of a bus driver”, like the mayor, to being a knight of the realm.
Sir Sadiq worked as a human rights lawyer before entering Parliament as MP for Tooting in 2005. He became mayor of London in 2016 and has since won two further terms.
Sir Andy, who was elected as the West Midlands’ first mayor in 2017, said he was only “the front man” for a project to make his position a success, and that his appointment as a knight was an “accolade for the people in the West Midlands”.
Several former MPs also received honours in the annual list.
Former MP Ranil Jayawardena, who served as environment secretary during Liz Truss’s brief time as prime minister, and former Conservative deputy chief whip Marcus Jones have both been made knights.
Former Labour MP Kate Hollern, who lost her Blackburn seat to Independent candidate Adnan Hussain in July, has been appointed Commander of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Lord Mike Katz, the national chairman of the Jewish Labour Movement who was recently ennobled by Sir Keir, has been appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).
This article was originally published at www.bbc.com
