{"id":341848,"date":"2025-12-30T00:12:06","date_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:12:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/341848\/"},"modified":"2025-12-30T00:12:06","modified_gmt":"2025-12-30T00:12:06","slug":"new-year-honours-2026-idris-elba-knighted-as-sarina-wiegman-and-lionesses-recognised","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/341848\/","title":{"rendered":"New Year Honours 2026: Idris Elba knighted as Sarina Wiegman and Lionesses recognised"},"content":{"rendered":"

Luther star Idris Elba becomes Sir Idris in recognition of his charity work with young people. He has launched an anti-knife crime campaign<\/a> and founded the Elba Hope Foundation alongside his wife Sabrina, providing grants to organisations across the UK, the US and Africa.<\/p>\n

He was a beneficiary of the Prince’s Trust<\/a> as a teenager, when he was given a \u00a31,500 grant to attend the National Youth Music Theatre programme.<\/p>\n

Since then he has risen to prominence in TV show The Wire and established a film career, with starring roles in Beasts of No Nation and Mandela: Long Walk to Freedom among others.<\/p>\n

“I receive this honour on behalf of the many young people whose talent, ambition and resilience has driven the work of the Elba Hope Foundation,” Sir Idris said. <\/p>\n

Meera Syal, now Dame Meera, was part of the team that created sketch show Goodness Gracious Me, which explored British Asian culture, and played the grandmother in The Kumars at No. 42.<\/p>\n

She is recognised for her contribution to drama<\/a>, literature and charity, having also written several novels and plays.<\/p>\n

Last of the Summer Wine and Open All Hours writer Roy Clarke is knighted, while actor and presenter Warwick Davis said of his OBE: “This is the best thing that’s ever happened to me – and I’ve been in Star Wars.”<\/p>\n

Little Britain comedian Matt Lucas and quiz-show-host-turned-author Richard Osman are also given OBEs, while comedian Bill Bailey, actor Sally Lindsay and children’s TV star Paul Chuckle are made MBEs.<\/p>\n

Match of the Day presenter Gabby Logan and football commentator Clive Tyldesley are appointed OBEs.<\/p>\n

TV chef Marcus Wareing and Location, Location, Location presenter Phil Spencer receive MBEs.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Luther star Idris Elba becomes Sir Idris in recognition of his charity work with young people. He has…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":341849,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":{"0":"post-341848","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-headlines","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-news","11":"tag-top-stories","12":"tag-topnews","13":"tag-topstories"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341848","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341848"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341848\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/341849"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341848"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341848"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341848"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}