Parliamentary Office of the Year Awards
It was cold outside, but the Speaker’s Rooms in the Houses of Parliament were decorated for Christmas and the champagne was flowing when Prospect joined Octopus to host the first Parliamentary Staffer of the Year Awards. Prospect was particularly delighted that the awards could be introduced by Helene Hayman, the life peer and former MP. In 2006, she won the inaugural election for the newlycreated position of Lord Speaker, standing down in 2011. As a veteran of both houses, Hayman spoke to the pressures of work in politics, particularly in what has been a turbulent period. Her thoughts were echoed by Lisa Townsend from Octopus; a former staffer, Townsend explained that she knew how much the contribution of parliamentary staff helps keeps parliament afloat.
Prospect’s Stephanie Boland, who presented the awards, agreed. At Prospect, we like to tell people that we work with politicians. But although it’s certainly true that we commission their writing, host them on panels, and do interviews with them, the truth is, about 50 per cent of the time it’s not the politicians we’re working with: it’s their staffers. They are the ones who answer the emails from an editor after hours, with that telltale “sent from my iPhone” at the bottom; they are the ones who juggle diaries and set up spaces for journalists to bring our Dictaphones and notebooks. It’s impossible to work on a political magazine without learning how hard staffers work.