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You can hear the sighs of relief. Not from the MPs who are packing up to slope back to their constituencies for the Christmas recess, but from the rest of the country. Finally, the year is coming to an end and there will be few chances for our politicians to do any further damage before they return to Westminster in January.
The psychodrama is finally done. We can all go to bed vaguely hopeful that the world won’t have taken a further turn for the worse by the time we wake up.
By any standards, 2025 has been a momentous year in politics. One clusterfuck after another. Even more remarkably, possibly the first one in decades when Boris Johnson hasn’t got anyone pregnant. As far as we know.
But before our politicians leave us in peace, there’s one final ritual to be observed: the Guardian’s parliamentarian of the year awards. A chance to remember just how lucky we are to have such a talented ruling elite.
Here are the champions:
The Eliot Ness investigation award
For the first time ever, this award is to be shared between the prime minister and the chancellor. After a member of the Downing Street team rang up various political editors to say that Wes Streeting, Shabana Mahmood and Ed Miliband were all mounting a leadership challenge against Keir Starmer, Starmer announced that he would be setting up an inquiry into why someone he had authorised to speak to the media had done as he asked.
Normally, he can count on his own team’s disloyalty. So Starmer would now be interrogating Starmer on why Starmer had leaked a damaging story about Starmer. And he wouldn’t be taking yes for an answer.
Meanwhile, Rachel Reeves was setting up her own inquiry into why she had changed her mind about raising income tax in her November budget. Reeves would also be giving Reeves a strong talking to about why when Reeves leaks something it is called a briefing and when one of her team does the same thing it’s a leak.
The HMRC self-assessment award
There was one clear winner. Step forward Angela Rayner. The former deputy prime minister bought a flat in Hove and, despite realising that the stamp duty had been complicated by the legal status of her disabled son’s trust fund, she chose to get her tax advice from someone she happened to meet in the pub who had said it would probably be OK. And who wouldn’t do that when you know the rightwing media are likely to be looking for any signs of wrongdoing?
Later in the year, Rayner had hoped to recoup her tax liabilities by appearing on I’m a Celebrity … Get Me Out of Here! Unfortunately the show’s producers turned her down on the grounds that she was a genuine celebrity and they only took C-listers.
Resignation of the year
Breaking with tradition, the prize this year goes to someone who has demanded a resignation. Encouraged by doing a little better at prime minister’s questions in the past month or so, Kemi Badenoch has taken to calling for the resignation of anyone she meets. Sometimes twice in the same speech.
She once insisted that Rachel Reeves should resign for failing to obtain the correct rental licence, only to then insist the chancellor should unresign herself so that she could later resign again for breaking a manifesto promise.
The list of people whose resignation Badenoch has now demanded includes the entire cabinet and shadow cabinet. Not forgetting herself. The number of people who have followed Badenoch’s advice is zero.
Toady of the year
As you might imagine, this is one of the most coveted and hotly contested awards. And it could easily have gone to any one of hundreds of MPs who have been only too willing to abandon their principles to further their career. Though not to Richard Holden, the shadow transport secretary who declared that all his colleagues in the shadow cabinet were total nonentities. Pots and kettles, Rich.
Instead, the winner for the 10th year in succession is shadow home secretary, Chris Philp. Not for nothing is he known as Westminster’s “Golden Nose in Search of a Bum”.
Back in 2016, the Philpster could be founded praising George Osborne’s brilliant economic case for remain. Since then he has gone on to say almost anything to ingratiate himself with the Tory leadership. Probably still the only person to wholeheartedly endorse the Liz Truss mini-budget.
Racist of the year
This used to be the award no one wanted to win. But in 2025, racism has made a big comeback in politics and is the go-to fashion accessory for every rightwing MP hoping to make it big.
It goes without saying that Honest Bob Jenrick and Nigel Farage were well up the shortlist. For reasons that aren’t entirely clear, Nige found it impossible to apologise to black and Jewish men who claim they had been abused by him while at school.
One boy had been repeatedly told “Africa is that way” while another was informed that “Hitler was right”. Reform’s main defence is that he was not intentionally racist and in any case all 28 men were liars.
Nonetheless, this year’s winner is Reform’s Sarah Pochin, who admitted she needs to projectile-vomit every time she sees a black or brown face in an advert. She now has to take anti-sickness medication before she enters the chamber in case there is a black person on the government benches.
TV light entertainment personality of the year
She is the gift that keeps on giving. Every time you think she has gone away for good, Liz Truss somehow manages to come back madder and funnier than ever before.
Her January appearance filming the presidential inauguration from her Washington hotel after she realised she wasn’t actually invited to the event would have been enough to secure her the prize. But her turn as regular chatshow host on her own YouTube channel has been TV gold.
Even by her own standards, this has been gloriously bonkers. Edited by a 12-year-old intern strung out on ketamine, each episode has Radon Liz talking about mad conspiracy theories with people almost as deranged as herself. Nothing is off limits. All levels of racism are welcome. Shortly to be made into a full-length feature film, provided she can stay out of the Priory for long enough.
Overseas politician of the year
It goes without saying that Donald Trump would have won the Nobel peace prize had not the BBC broadcast a news report that the prize had been awarded to a Venezuelan woman instead.
“They changed my prize,” he said. “It was a beautiful prize. Perhaps the most beautiful prize ever. I don’t really mind, because I never wanted the prize but they still should have given me the prize.
“No man has done more for peace in the history of peace than I have. I’ve ended eight global conflicts. Including the one between Albania and Azerbaijan. That was so big, so big the Albaniainians and the Azzers had no idea they were even at war. No idea.
“I blame the BBC. They are going to have to pay me a lot of money for interfering with the democratic process of another country now that my new national security strategy has shown that I plan to interfere with the democratic process of other countries. And by the way, I never met Peter Mandelson. Never heard of him.”
To rectify the Nobel committee’s egregious error, the Guardian is happy to honour the US president with this prestigious award. Just so long as he still allows me to visit my daughter in Minneapolis.
