Former England manager Gareth Southgate, London mayor Sadiq Khan and actor Stephen Fry have been knighted in the New Year Honours.
Others who have received honours include a host of Team GB athletes – among them gold medal-winning runner Keely Hodgkinson – as well as author Jacqueline Wilson and television presenter Alan Titchmarsh.
Honours have also been awarded to some of the wrongfully convicted sub-postmasters following the Horizon scandal.
Sir Gareth, who has been knighted for services to association football, led the England team to the finals of the Euros in 2020 and 2024, as well as the semi-final of the 2018 World Cup.
However, the Three Lions did not manage to win any tournaments under his leadership, and he resigned following their 2-1 final defeat to Spain in July.
His knighthood matches that earned by Sir Bobby Robson, the last England manager to take a team to the World Cup semis. Fifty-four-year-old Southgate declined to comment on the honour.
Sir Stephen, best known for appearing in Blackadder and hosting quiz show QI, has been recognised for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity.
The actor has been president of mental health charity Mind since 2011 and also supported the conservation group Fauna and Flora International.
Image: Stephen Fry has been knighted for services to mental health awareness, the environment and charity
He said he was “startled and enchanted” after receiving a letter informing him of the knighthood, adding: “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.”
London mayor Sir Sadiq has been honoured for political and public service, having held his role since 2016.
Image: London mayor Sadiq Khan said he was ‘humbled’. Pic: PA
He said he was “humbled” to have received a knighthood and “couldn’t have dreamed when growing up on a council estate in south London that I would one day be mayor of London“.
“It’s the honour of my life to serve the city I love and I will continue to build the fairer, safer, greener and more prosperous London that all of the capital’s communities deserve,” he said.
Conservative London councillor Matthew Goodwin-Freeman launched a petition to “stop” the knighthood which surpassed 200,000 signatures earlier this month.
Beloved author Jacqueline Wilson, who created the Tracy Beaker series, has been made a Dame Grand Cross (GBE) for services to literature.
Image: Jacqueline Wilson has been made a dame. Pic: PA
Actress Carey Mulligan and television presenter Alan Titchmarsh have become Commanders of the Order of the British Empire (CBE).
Nobel Prize-winning novelist Sir Kazuo Ishiguro is made a Companion of Honour for services to literature, actor Eddie Marsan is an Officer of the Order of the British Empire (OBE) and Myleene Klass becomes a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE).
A number of gongs also went to athletes following this year’s Paris Olympics, where Team GB won 65 medals, and the Paralympics, where Team ParalympicsGB finished in second place with 49 gold medals.
Twenty-two-year-old Keely Hodgkinson earned an MBE after claiming gold in the 800m at the Olympics, setting a new British record of one minute 54.61 seconds, making her the sixth fastest woman at the distance in history.
Image: Tom Pidcock crosses the line to win gold during the men’s cross-country mountain biking. Pic: PA
Other honoured gold-medallists include swimmer Duncan Scott (OBE), sailor Ellie Aldridge (MBE) and rowers Lola Anderson, Hannah Scott, Lauren Henry and Georgie Brayshaw (all MBEs).
Former F1 driver and broadcaster Martin Brundle has become an OBE and former Scotland and Liverpool footballer and BBC pundit Alan Hansen is an MBE.
Sky News royal and events commentator Major General Alastair Bruce has been made a Companion of the Order of the Bath – an honour which recognises the work of senior military officials and civil servants.
Maj Gen Bruce served as an officer of the Scots Guards, including during the Falklands War. Earlier this year, he retired as governor of Edinburgh Castle, a position he had held since June 2019.
Image: Major General Alastair Bruce (left) with the King and Queen at Edinburgh Castle. Pic: PA
As a commentator for Sky News, he has covered numerous state events, including Queen Elizabeth II’s funeral in 2022 and the King’s coronation the following year. Most recently, he provided commentary for this year’s Remembrance Day events and the ceremony marking the restoration of Notre Dame in Paris.
Horizon IT scandal victims Lee Castleton, Jo Hamilton, Christopher Head and Seema Misra have been made OBEs for services to justice.
Politicians who received honours include Labour MP Emily Thornberry, who has become a dame, and former West Midlands mayor Andy Street, who has been knighted.
Image: Labour MP Emily Thornberry
The oldest person on the list is 103-year-old World War Two Mosquito pilot Colin Bell, who was given a British Empire Medal (BEM) for charitable fundraising and public speaking.
The youngest to receive honours are 18-year-olds Mikayla Beames, given a BEM for her fundraising efforts supporting children with cancer, and para-swimmer William Ellard, made an MBE after winning gold in the S14 200m freestyle at the Paris Paralympics.
More than 1,200 people from across the UK received honours in the latest list.
Zack Polanski and Nigel Farage might be polar opposites when it comes to politics – but they do have one thing in common.
The pair are both cutting through in a changing media landscape when attention is scarce and trust in mainstream politics is scarcer still.
For Farage, the Reform UK leader, momentum has been building since he won a seat at the general election last year and he continues to top the polls.
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2:47
Badenoch doesn’t want to talk about Farage
But in the six weeks since Polanski became leader of the Greens, membership has doubled, they’ve polled higher than ever before while three Labour councillors have defected. Has the insurgent firebrand finally met his match?
“I’m sure I don’t need to say this, but I despise Nigel Farage’s politics and disagree with him on almost everything,” Polanski tells Sky News.
“But I think his storytelling has undoubtedly cut through and so yes there has been a huge part of us saying ‘If Farage can do that with a politics of hate and division, then it’s time for the Green Party to do that with a politics of hope and community’ and that’s absolutely what I intend to keep doing.”
Polanski was speaking after a news conference to announce the defections of the councillors in Swindon – a bellwether area that is currently led by a Labour council and has two Labour MPs, but was previously controlled by the Tories.
It is the sort of story the party would previously have announced in a press release, but the self-described “eco populist” is determined to do things differently to grab attention.
He has done media interviews daily over the past few weeks, launched his own podcast and turbocharged the Greens social media content – producing slick viral videos such as his visit to Handsworth (the Birmingham neighbourhood where Robert Jenrick claimed he saw no white people).
Image: Zack Polanski announces the defection of Labour councillors
Polanski insists that it is not increased exposure in and of itself that is attracting people to his party but his messaging – he wants to “make hope normal again”.
“I’m not going to be in a wetsuit or be parachuting from a helicopter”, he says in a swipe at Lib Dem leader Ed Davey.
“I think you only need to do stunts if you don’t have something really clear to say and then you need to grab attention.
“I think when you look at the challenges facing this country right now if you talk about taxing wealth and not work, if you talk about the mass inequality in our society and you talk about your solidarity with people living in poverty, with working-class communities, I think these are the things that people both want to hear, but also they want to know our solutions. The good news is I’ve got loads of solutions and the party has loads of solutions. “
Some of those solutions have come under criticism – Reform UK have attacked his policy to legalise drugs and abolish private landlords.
Image: Discontent is fuelling the rise of challenger parties. Pic: PA
Polanski is confident he can win the fight. He says it helps that he talks “quite quickly because it means that I’m able to be bold but also have nuance”. And he is a London Assembly member not an MP, so he has time to be the party’s cheerleader rather than being bogged down with case work.
As for what’s next, the 42-year-old has alluded to conversations with Labour MPs about defections. He has not revealed who they are but today gave an idea of who he would welcome – naming Starmer critic Richard Burgon.
Like Burgon, Polanski believes Starmer “will be gone by May” and that the local elections for Labour “will be disastrous”.
He wants to replace Labour “right across England and Wales” when voters go to the polls, something Reform UK has also vowed to do.
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Is Zack Polanski squeezing the Labour vote?
Could the Greens be kingmakers?
Luke Tryl, director of More in Common, says this reflects a “new axis of competition” as frontline British politics shifts from a battle of left vs right to a battle of process vs anti-establishment.
Farage has been the beneficiary of this battle so far but Tryl says Polanski is “coming up in focus groups” in a way his predecessors didn’t. “He is cutting through”, the pollster says.
However, one big challenge Polanski faces is whether his rise will cause the left vote to fragment and make it easier for Farage to win – something he has said he wants to avoid at all costs.
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And yet, asked if he would form a coalition with Labour to keep Farage out of power in the event of a hung parliament, he suggested he would only do so if Sir Keir Starmer is no longer prime minister.
“I have issues with Keir Starmer as prime minister,” he says. “I think he had the trust of the public, but I would say that’s been broken over and over again. If we had a different Labour prime minister that would be a different conversation about where their values are.”
He adds: “I do think stopping Nigel Farage has to be a huge mission for any progressive in this country, but the biggest way we can stop Nigel Farage is by people joining the Green Party right now; creating a real alternative to this Labour government, where we say we don’t have to compromise on our values.
“If people wanted to vote for Nigel Farage, they’d vote for Nigel Farage. What does Keir Starmer think he’s doing by offering politics that are similar but watered down? That’s not going to appeal to anyone, and I think that’s why they’re sinking in the polls.”
A former paratrooper accused of murdering two civilians in the Bloody Sunday shootings in Northern Ireland 53 years ago has been found not guilty.
Soldier F – who cannot be identified for legal reasons – was accused of killing James Wray and William McKinney during disorder after a civil rights parade on 30 January 1972 in Londonderry, also known as Derry.
The veteran was also found not guilty of five attempted murders at Belfast Crown Court on Thursday.
He had denied all seven charges.
Thirteen people were shot dead by the Parachute Regiment on the day in question.
Soldier F did not give evidence, but the court heard about previous statements from two paratroopers – known as G and H – who were in Glenfada Park North along with F.
The prosecution said their testimony was direct evidence that the defendant had opened fire in the area.
Image: Bloody Sunday Trust undated handout photos of (top row, left to right) Patrick Doherty, Bernard McGuigan, John “Jackie” Duddy and Gerald Donaghey, (bottom row, left to right) Gerard McKinney, Jim Wray, William McKinney and John
However, the defence argued that they were unreliable witnesses as their statements were inconsistent with each other and with other witnesses who gave evidence.
The trial was held in Belfast in front of a judge, not a jury.
Delivering his judgment, Judge Patrick Lynch said the evidence presented against the veteran fell well short of what was needed for conviction.
This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly.