Sadiq Khan, Stephen Fry and Emily Thornberry make new year honours list
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Mayor of London ‘truly humbled’ to be made a knight as authors, actors and sporting stars receive honours. Sadiq Khan and Stephen Fry received knighthoods along with the former England manager Gareth Southgate while Emily Thornberry became a dame in the first new year honours list since Labour’s general election win.
The mayor of London, who secured a record third term in City Hall this May, said he was “truly humbled” by the honour. Fry, who first made his name as one half of a double act with Hugh Laurie in the late 1980s, said he had felt “startled and enchanted” on receiving the news.
Fry, 67, a celebrated author and actor who is the president of Mind and vice-president of the conservation charity Fauna & Flora International, was given the award for his services to mental health awareness. He said: “When you are recognised it does make you feel a bit ‘crikey’, but I think the most emotional thing is that when I think of my childhood, and my dreadful unhappiness and misery and stupidity, and everything that led to so many failures as a child. And for my parents, really, what a disaster. I mean every time the phone rang, they thought: ‘Oh, God, what has Stephen done now?’ It was a sort of joke in the family.”.
Southgate, 54, who resigned after leading England’s men’s team to the finals of Euro 2020 and 2024 and the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup, was honoured for services to association football. Thornberry, who had been a surprise omission from Keir Starmer’s first cabinet after holding the role of shadow attorney general in opposition, described herself as “both honoured and surprised” by her appointment as a Dame Commander of the Order of the British Empire.
