Sadiq Khan, Stephen Fry and Emily Thornberry make new year honours list

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.

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Jacqueline Wilson: my mother slept with a gun under her pillow

Children’s author says she told her elderly mother to get rid of it as she was terrified of being mistakenly shot

The children’s author Dame Jacqueline Wilson has said her elderly mother slept with a gun beneath her pillow.

Wilson, creator of the Tracy Beaker series, told an audience at the Hay festival in Wales that she was daughter of a character more colourful than any she had written – and that she was terrified her mother might shoot her by accident, and persuaded her to get rid of it.

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