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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.

As health minister, he earned his ministerial spurs in some tough battles, and proved himself an eloquent speaker, but it is in his current role as minister of state for borders and immigration that the judges felt he had, in mafia terms, made his bones.

Bombarded on all sides by media attack and by chickens hurtling back to roost, this minister has shown a remarkable capacity to stay upright and keep fighting. Some in his party talk of him as a future leader. His current job will make or break that ambition.

Then to the second definition: the very day after the judges’ final decision-making lunch, the winner was fined £100 after admitting using his mobile phone while driving. Very naughty: we’ll be keeping an eye on you, minister.

But for all the right reasons, please join me in congratulating this year’s Minister to Watch: Liam Byrne.

MARATHON  MAN OF THE YEAR

We come now to a judges’ special award, given to an MP whose sheer tenacity and stamina has earned him a place in the history books.

Now in his 82nd year, he has been a prominent feature in political life since the 1950s – a thorn in the side of all who would deal with Dublin or, in his view, appease nationalist sentiment, from Terence O’Neill to Brian Faulkner. First elected as MP for North Antrim in 1970, he has since earned the extraordinary accolade of being a member of the Lower House, an MEP and a Member of the Legislative Assembly in Ulster.

For half a century his palm was a bright red, his name synonymous with the word “No”. John Hume once said to our winner, "If the word 'no' were to be removed from the English language, you'd be speechless, wouldn't you!" To which he replied, "No, I wouldn't!"
He called the Pope Anti-Christ, the Queen of being Tony Blair’s parrot, described alcohol as the “devil’s buttermilk”.

Then last year began one of the most extraordinary rapprochements ever witnessed in these shores, as the DUP agreed to fresh elections and, crucially the inclusion of Sinn Fein in the executive. Not so much the lion lying down with the lamb, as trying to eat it, stopping at the last moment, apologising and then suggesting the world’s first leonine-ovine civil partnership.

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