Apple CEO and founder Steve Jobs was stripped of an honorary Knighthood in 2009 by then Prime Minister Gordon Brown, a former senior Labour MP has revealed.

The unnamed Labour MP is reported by The Daily Telegraph to have put forward Jobs for the honorary KBE only for Brown to snub the proposal in its final stages in a petty vendetta against the Apple front man who turn down an invitation to speak at an earlier Labour Party Conference, an invitation extended to him by the former PM.

The MP, who left Parliament at latest general election, said of the Steve Jobs KBE plans: “Apple has been the only major global company to create stunning consumer products because it has always taken design as the key component of everything it has produced.”

On the Apple CEO who is currently on his third medically-induced leave of absence from the company since being diagnosed with pancreatic cancer back in 2004, the MP added: “No other CEO has consistently shown such a commitment.”

Jobs, who would have followed bitter rival and Microsoft founder Bill Gates to the honorary KBE for service to the UK technology industry, is claimed to have missed out of the honour after being alerted to the plan by Gordon Brown, a claim that a spokeswoman for former PM has refuted.

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Via: The Daily Telegraph