After eighteen months of Covid, it was with a sense of relief and joy that MPs, peers, bag-carriers and hangers-on descended on London’s Rosewood Hotel. After all the twists and turns of the pandemic’s politics, ministers and opposite numbers enjoyed the chance to break bread and hear from some of Parliament’s leading figures collecting gongs at tonight’s awards. The guest of honour at the shindig was the recently-defenestrated Robert Buckland, liberated from high office and now enjoying his new-found freedom on the back benches. And it was with great delight that he dispensed the awards all evening, with heavyweights and grandees dispensing jokes and jibes alike.
Sajid Javid (Comeback of the Year) wanted to thank those who had helped him become Health Secretary: ‘The Prime Minister, my wife… and the CCTV guy at the Department of Health’ he said, to roars of laughter, though not from Matt Hancock’s corner. Carolyn Harris (Campaigner of the Year) suggested: ‘I’ve got more friends here tonight than I would at a Momentum conference’ while Chris Bryant (Speech of the Year for his intervention on Owen Paterson) told the audience: ‘Some of you shouldn’t really be applauding because you all voted the wrong way’. Nadhim
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