Fellow recipient Sue Nye, who will join the Lords for the Labour Party, found herself in the spotlight during the election campaign when Mr Brown appeared to blame her for his encounter with Gillian Duffy - the Rochdale pensioner he was recorded privately calling "bigoted".
To make things even worse, Gillian Duffy, a former council employee from Rochdale and the object of Mr Brown's remark, would appear to be a walking archetype of Labour's core vote.