Spectator competition winners: Jeremy Corbyn – the early years

The call for the comically appalling first or final paragraph of the memoir of a well-known figure was one of those challenges where we raise a glass in memory of Edward Bulwer-Lytton, Victorian novelist and patron saint of purple prose. The oft-cited example of his florid style is the opening to the 1830 novel Paul Clifford — ‘It was a dark and stormy night’ — which was used by Charles Schulz as the first line of Snoopy’s novel, and by Brian Murdoch in his winning entry below. You didn’t quite hit the spot this week and the standard was patchy. Some creditable entries were disqualified because they didn’t strike me as plausible beginnings or endings. Still, I enjoyed Frank Upton’s portrait of a young Jeremy Corbyn soaking up the ideological wisdom of Noggin the Nog and The Woodentops; he earns an honourable mention. Other highlights include D.A. Prince’s Richard Branson, Paul Freeman’s Jacob-Rees Mogg (‘I well remember my emergence from mater’s womb, or Wexit as I call it…) and George Wright’s John Bercow.