PM receives backlash over donor peerage

Prime minister Boris Johnson has sparked criticism after it was announced that a major Conservative donor will be granted a lifetime peerage and made a government minister.

Malcolm Offord, a financier who has previously gifted £147,500 to the Conservative Party, has been appointed as a junior minister for the Scotland Office.

Mr Offor failed to be elected as an MSP in the Scottish elections in May.

Fiona Hyslop, an MSP for Linlithgow, said via Twitter: “You have more chance becoming a Tory Scotland Office minister if you are rejected by voters in a Scottish election than elected by them.”

Stewart Hosie MP, one of Hyslop’s SNP colleagues, said the decision displayed a “contempt for democracy” and suggested that “rampant Tory cronyism” was “engulfing” Westminster, adding that Scotland would be better out of the union.

Alister Jack, the secretary of state for Scotland, defended the move, saying that Mr Offord would help the country’s economic recovery through his “wealth of valuable business experience”.

Mr Johnson has previously faced backlash for elevating Nicky Morgan, Zac Goldsmith, David Frost and Conservative donor Peter Cruddas to the cabinet after granting them peerages.