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Saturday 22 November 2008

The winners of the political year

This is the text of the remarks that Matthew d’Ancona, editor of The Spectator, delivered at the Spectator Threadneedle Parliamentarian of the Year awards lunch at Claridge’s Hotel.

Ladies and gentlemen: the Peer of the Year is the Iron Lady herself, Baroness Thatcher of Kesteven in the County of Lincolnshire.

SPEECH OF THE YEAR

In the era of sound bites and slogans, it has become commonplace to declare the age of great parliamentary rhetoric.

This year’s winner is living proof that the doom-mongers are wrong and has been since he burst upon the parliamentary scene in 1989, barely out of short trousers but already able to read as many volumes of Hansard a day as he could down pints of beer.

His speech on 20 March to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade was even by his own formidable standards, a tour de force. It laced together a rich understanding of history with a profound sense of the contemporary. It rose so high above party politics that the speaker even found it in his heart to be nice to John Prescott. It

Addressing himself to Wilberforce, he said: “At a time when people in this country are sadly disillusioned with politicians and the political process, his conduct was of a most remarkable parliamentarian, placing mankind above party, principle above politics, and results above personal ambition.”

But this was a spur to action as well as an act of commemoration. Our winner spoke gravely of the evil of 21st Century human trafficking. “Just as the baton from the abolitionists was passed on to other parliaments and nations around the world who followed suit in outlawing slavery, it now rests with governments and parliaments of our time.”

The judges were also impressed by the sheer cheek of the winner in managing to get a plug for his new book – a biography of Wilberforce – into paragraph two.

The winner of the Speech of the Year Award is the Rt Hon William Hague.

RESIGNATION OF THE YEAR

 As the First Decade of New Labour gave way to Gordon’s Age of Change, there were plenty of resignations – voluntary or otherwise – to pick from.

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