Malcolm Turnbull ridiculed Tony Abbott over Aussie knights but wanted Angela Lansbury made a dame

Malcolm Turnbull, who ridiculed Tony Abbott for introducing knighthoods, lobbied British PM to make his ‘aunt’ a dame.

Malcolm Turnbull with his mother’s cousin, actress Angela Lansbury.

Republican champion Malcolm Turnbull — who ridiculed Tony Abbott for introducing knighthoods in Australia — lobbied then British prime minister and friend David Cameron to make his own ‘aunt’ a dame.

In his memoir, which hit bookstores on Sunday, Mr Turnbull ­reveals he approached Mr Cameron to urge him to honour his mother’s cousin, British-American actress Angela Lansbury.

Malcolm Turnbull’s book A Bigger Picture.

Mr Turnbull said he pushed for the top Queen’s honour, even though Lansbury, at the time in her late 80s, was a “rock solid ­Labour supporter”, and has lived most of her life in California.

“I encouraged my friend David Cameron, then PM of the United Kingdom, to make her a dame — like so many of the great actresses of her vintage,” he writes in his book, A Bigger Picture.

He writes of his “delight” at spending time with the star he ­refers to as “Auntie” — ­famous for her Broadway musical career and starring in the long-running TV show Murder, She Wrote — in Australia in 2013, when she was starring in a production of Driving Miss Daisy. “Whenever I saw her she ­reminded me of Mum — the rather square Lansbury face is very distinctive.”

Encouraging the honour was in marked contrast to his view about Australians being honoured in the same way, writing in his diary at the time that Mr Abbott had become a “weird caricature of himself” when he awarded an Australian knighthood to Prince Philip.

“Reinstating knights and dames was wacky enough, but Prince Philip?” Mr Turnbull writes. While Mr Turnbull might have supported his aunt becoming a dame, he told Mr Abbott at the time they were briefly reintroduced in Australia: “If you had consulted me I would have counselled against it … I am not a fan.”

Tony Abbott meets Prince Philip, Duke of Edinburgh as they attend a Service of Remembrance at Bayeux cathedral during D-Day 70 in 2014.

The former prime minister also ridiculed knighthoods publicly when he abolished them in ­November 2015, one of his first acts after he toppled Mr Abbott as prime minister.

“It is a long way from being the most important issue in Australia today,” he said.

“Knights and dames are titles that are really anachronistic, they’re out of date, not appropriate in 2015 in Australia.”

Mr Abbott controversially reintroduced the imperial-style honours in 2014, more than 20 years after Labor had abolished them.

“My intention is that this new award will go to those who have accepted public office rather than sought it and who can never, by virtue of that office, ever entirely return to private life … this is an important grace note in public life,” Mr Abbott said at the time.

Former governors-general Peter Cosgrove and Quentin Bryce, ex-NSW governor Marie Bashir and former defence chief Angus Houston were the only Australians to be made knights or dames. They were allowed to keep their titles after the honour was abolished again.

The most controversial knighthood handed out was to the Queen’s consort on Australia Day 2015. Mr Abbott faced the first of two leadership spills against him weeks later.

Mr Turnbull, who led the ­republican movement in Australia to a failed referendum in 1999, ­despite most Australians backing the idea generally, writes in his book that Mr Abbott’s Prince ­Philip call had been a “tipping point” that precipitated his demise.

He writes this was all unravelling for Mr Abbott “while I was busy promoting Australia to the Californians, driving a Tesla for the first time … and catching Auntie Angela Lansbury on stage in Blithe Spirit at the Golden Gate Theatre in San Francisco”.