Parliamentarian of the Year

The 19th annual Parliamentarian of the Year awards, sponsored by The Spectator and by Zurich Financial Services, were presented by Michael Martin, MP, Speaker of the House of Commons, the guest of honour at the awards presentation luncheon held at the Mandarin Oriental Hotel, London. The guests were welcomed by Sandy Leitch, chief executive of Zurich Financial Services. The chairman of the judges, Boris Johnson, editor of The Spectator, read out the judges’ choices and the reasons for them.

Parliamentarian of the Year:
The Rt Hon. Tony Blair, MP
The talents of this year’s victor ludorum were first spotted at Fettes, where he was in the netball team, and played Mark Antony in Julius Caesar. It has been documented that Poppy Anderson, his housemaster’s wife, decided to kit the conspirators out in blue, and the Caesarians in red. Who can say what psychological impact it might have had on the young actor if his first oratorical triumph had been accomplished in a blue toga and not a red one? It is hard to think of another party leader who, for eight years, has exercised such unchallenged dominance of the political landscape. Time after time the Labour benches threaten to rebel, and he quells them as Zeus quelling a bunch of sea-nymphs. He can do cool; he can do Churchill; he can do cool Churchill: ‘You know, guys, it’s blood, toil, tears and sweat.’ This was a politician who opposed the Falklands war, but who has now sent British forces overseas twice on successful engagements. The judges wish to stress that this award is primarily a recognition of the parliamentary achievement of a man whose government is not universally thought to have been good for parliamentary democracy. Commenting on the confidence of his performances, one judge said, ‘He’s on top of his game’; another said, ‘He’s on mid-season form’, and another that he is ‘the coolest cat in town’.