SPECTATOR/HIGHLAND PARK AWARDS
Parliamentarian of the Year — the winners
The tenth annual Highland Park/Spec- tator Parliamentarian of the Year awards took place on Wednesday. The awards were presented by Lord Callaghan of Cardiff, the guest of honour, at a luncheon at the Savoy Hotel. The guests were wel- comed by Mr John Goodwin on behalf of Highland Distilleries.
The chairman of the judges, Mr Dominic Lawson, editor of The Spectator, read out the judges' remarks and citations.
Parliamentarians of the Year Mr George Robertson, MP for Hamilton, and Mr Geoffrey Hoon, MP for Ashfield.
impossible to choose between Ajfic2 the former professor of law who devised the procedural manoeuvre and the front-bench spokesman who executed it with little time available to him to stop and think before having to go to the dispatch box. Therefore the judges have decided, for the first time, to make a joint award for Parliamentarian of the Year.'
Member to Watch: Mr Nicholas Soames, MP for Crawley. `Our winner is the man who made it politically and gastrically safe to wash down Six-year-old beef with two-week-old apple mice. He is the Minister for Food, or, rather, the Minister of Food. No man could better advertise the merits of eating plenty and often. Were Mrs Bottomley to make an educational programme exemplifying the sort of digestive self-abuse she wants to stamp out, our Member to Watch would be the star. Yet he is not just a jolly advertise- ment for what little fun there is left in poli- tics. He is one of the most effective and popular ministers in the Government. He is an outstanding communicator. At the dis- patch box his persuasive skills and wit dis- arm even the most hostile opponent. As a minister with politics in his blood, he embodies many of the old virtues of public service. The judges viewed him not only as a man who merits promotion, but also as one likely to achieve high office in his party.
They were unanimous in agreeing that Mr Nicholas Soames had no rival for this year's Member to Watch.'
Backbencher of the Year: Sir Peter Tapsell, MP for Lindsey East.
`Our Backbencher of the Year has had more experience than most in practising the art of attrition from behind the Trea- sury bench. First elected in 1959 he has, apart from a brief spell in the 1970s, never held any sort of office. Yet, in the 1955 gen- eral election, he was right-hand man to Sir Anthony Eden. He is exactly the sort of backbencher the whips cannot tolerate. He makes a point, in his frequent interven- tions, of confirming that he is not asking planted questions. He is a completely inde-
pendent man and demonstrates this by fre- quently asking the question the Prime Min- ister least wants to hear. He is still famed for a remark he made more than a decade ago to Dr David Owen, who said of a par- ticular policy that "history will judge". "Has the Rt Hon Gentleman not considered," said our winner, "that history may have something better to do?" Our winner is an assiduous attender of the Commons. Indeed, because he has long sat behind the Prime Minister, he cannot afford to be absent; otherwise his constituents, watching on television, start to ask him where he is.'
Debater of the Year: Mr Kenneth Clarke, MP for Rushcliffe.
The judges of the awards were: Simon Heifer of The Spectator, Alan Watkins of the Independent on Sunday, Michael White of the Guardian, Geoffrey Parkhouse of the Glasgow Herald, Matthew Parris of the Times, George Jones of the Daily Telegraph. The judges want to repeat that their Awards do not claim any superior authori- ty. They are offered only in affection and respect for the Houses of Parliament.
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