Channel 4’s politics awards announced
By politics.co.uk staff
Channel 4 has unveiled the winners of its annual political awards, with Lord Mandelson winning one of the prizes.
He took home the ‘politicians’ politician’ award, beating Labour backbencher Diane Abbott and Tory Shadow chancellor George Osborne.
Vince Cable, the Liberal Democrat’s economics spokesman, won ‘opposition politician’ of the year following a highly adept, but fruitless, response to the financial crisis.
Lib Dem strategists are perplexed as to why Mr Cable’s performance has not resulted in more of a bounce for the party, but opinion polls regularly give him high ratings from the public.
He beat David Cameron and Kenneth Clarke, who recently returned to the shadow front bench, to win the prize.
Mr Cable also won the ‘political impact’ award for his analysis of the downturn, beating off competition from London mayor Boris Johnson, prime minister Gordon brown, and business secretary Lord Mandelson.
The channel cited his comments predicting the downturn during Britain’s booom period as the reason for the award.
The award for ‘campaigning politician’ went to Baroness Hollis, trumping Frank Field – who spearheaded Labour attempts for a U-turn on the 10p tax debacle – and Iain Duncan Smith, the former Tory leader who now runs the party’s social justice initiative.
The Hugo Young Papers took the ‘political book of the year’ award, beating Cherie Blair’s autobiography – which caused considerable controversy on its release – and Prezza: My Story, the biography of former deputy prime minister John Prescott, in which he discussed his battle with bulimia.
Mr Prescott did win some recognition for his work in television, however, with his Class System and Me film on BBC2 winning the ‘politics in the media’ award.
The book award was voted for by a group of politics students from Hull University spending a year working for MPs.
The awards which went to individuals were voted for by a secret ballot of members of the Commons and the Lords, other than the political impact award, which was done by a public vote online.
The Channel 4 awards ceremony will be broadcast on Saturday night.
