The broadcaster Mr Melvyn Bragg, and an Asian businessman, Mr Waheed Ali, are among the latest group of 27 working peers appointed as New Labour attempts to redress the numbers of pro-government peers in the House of Lords.
The new peers will arrive at Westminster at a crucial time in the debate over the future of the Lords. The government has signalled its intention to radically reform the Lords and is bringing forward legislation in the autumn to abolish the voting rights of hereditary peers.
Among the 18 people from the arts, business and public relations nominated by the Prime Minister, Mr Blair, Mr Bragg (58) has perhaps the highest profile. A valued supporter of the government, Mr Bragg is the host of ITV's South Bank Show and has been head of arts programmes at London Weekend Television (LWT) since 1982. He became a multi-millionaire when the LWT network was floated on the stock market.
Mr Ali (34), who is a friend of Mr Blair and has donated large sums of money to Labour, is the managing director of Planet 24 Television, which produces The Big Breakfast Show for Channel 4. One of his fellow directors is Mr Bob Geldoff. His personal fortune is said to be £10 million. He also acted as an adviser on courting the youth vote during Labour's election campaign.
It is the second list of working peers drawn up by Labour since it took power in May 1997. The appointments are a provisional step in the government's plans for constitutional reform. Under the current make-up of the Lords, 156 peers take the Labour whip, compared with 474 peers on the Conservative benches. If the government's planned reform succeeds, there would be an interim chamber of life peers before wider reform of the Lords would seek to abolish their voting rights.
The Conservative leader, Mr William, Hague, put forward five names. His choice of working peers includes the former Tory chancellor and Euro-sceptic Mr Norman Lamont. He was omitted from Mr Major's resignation honours list last year. At the time, it was seen as a thinly-veiled snub to Mr Lamont, who was much criticised over Britain's withdrawal from the ERM on Black Wednesday in September 1992. He once described Mr Major's leadership of the government as being "in office but not in power".
Other Tory nominees include the PR consultant Sir Tim Bell, credited with playing a major role in steering the Conservatives to power during the 1980s, Mrs Peta Buscombe, a vice-chair of the Conservative Party, and Mr Paul White, the Tory leader of Essex County Council.
Among the four Liberal Democrat nominees are Mrs Sue Miller, a former Liberal Democrat leader on South Somerset District Council, and Mr Timothy Clement-Jones, a public affairs consultant and chairman of the party's federal finance committee.
Two MEPs also become working peers. Both Mrs Christine Crawley, MEP for Birmingham East and Mr John Tomlinson, MEP for Birmingham West, will stand down from the European Parliament to take their seats in the Lords. Mr Tomlinson said he did not consider the peerage as a "retirement".