Who is Charlotte Owen? The youngest life peer after being named in Boris Johnson's honours list

Her time working in parliament totals around five years and eight months. Credit: Getty

At 29, Charlotte Owen, Boris Johnson's ex-aide, is set to become the youngest ever life peer following her inclusion on the former prime minister's honours list.

The list, that has dished out a damehood to Priti Patel and knighthoods to Jacob Rees-Mogg and Michael Fabricant, has attracted a host of criticism with accusations of cronyism being thrown at Mr Johnson.

The full rundown of honours was unveiled just hours before Mr Johnson resigned as an MP on Friday, claiming that a Commons investigation into whether he misled Parliament over partygate was an attempt to "drive me out."

A parliamentary hairdresser and an adviser to Carrie Johnson were given honours for their contributions to British society, as some called into question the threshold to merit the ennoblement.

Ms Owen will now become Baroness Owen, but what kind of political career has earned her the honour?

Who is she?

Charlotte Tranter Owen, born in 1993, graduated from the University of York in 2015.

She gained a 2:1 in Politics and International Relations.

According to her LinkedIn page, she worked as an intern for strategic communications consultancy Portland, before working as a constituency intern for Tory MP William Wragg for one month.

For six months, Ms Owen worked as a parliamentary intern to Boris Johnson, before becoming a parliamentary assistant to Alok Sharma for seven months.

For a year and nine months after this, she was a senior parliamentary assistant to Jake Berry and Mr Johnson, before exclusively working for the former prime minister for a year and two months.

From February 2021 to October 2022, Ms Owen was a special adviser to both Mr Johnson and Liz Truss during her short tenure as PM.

In this role, when Mr Johnson was in office, she worked half of the time for him and the other half for the chief whip and parliamentary secretary to the treasury, Chris Heaton-Harris.

Her time working in parliament, after being granted a peerage, therefore totals around five years and eight months.

Charlotte Owen's inclusion on Boris Johnson's list makes her the youngest ever life peer. Credit: PA

A controversial honours list

It comes after several of Mr Johnson's nominated allies failed to appear on his resignation honours list.

Notably, Nadine Dorries, who also resigned on Friday, and Alok Sharma, were not named.

Mr Johnson swiftly accused the current prime minister of intervening with the list - claims which Number 10 has furiously denied.

Rishi Sunak has now hit back at Mr Johnson's claims he intervened, saying the former prime minister "asked me to do something I wasn't prepared to do".

Taking questions at the London Tech week conference, where he was hoping to speak mainly about AI, Mr Sunak said: "Boris Johnson asked me to do something that I wasn't prepared to do, because I didn't think it was right."


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