What award categories are there?A. There are four award categories:
- Politician of the Year (open to people who hold elected office)
- Bridge-builders of the Year (open to two or more people who have worked across divides)
- Campaigner of the Year (open to organisations and people who are not elected)
- The Daniel Stevenson Award (for a politician to elect another politician from another party)
If you aren’t sure which category someone fits into, don’t worry. Pick the one you think fits best, and we will reallocate them if needed.
What are the criteria to decide who wins?A range of criteria will help us decide who wins, but good entries will demonstrate:
- engagement in the political process to find areas of agreement
- willingness to admit to, and apologise for, past and current failures and mistakes
- openness to changing their minds and explaining why
- commitment to reconciliation and bridging divides
- engagement in politics with courtesy, good humour and kindness.
For examples, you can
see who won the 2019/20 Civility in Politics Awards.
Who can nominate you, and how do you enter? You can enter someone for the Awards by filling in our nomination entry form during the nomination period. People can self-nominate or be nominated by others. Should a vital name be missed out, the judges reserve the option to put an extra name into the ring.
We are looking for people who, more often than not, help our democracy function more effectively.
Nominees for the Daniel Stevenson Award must be a current politican (at any level), and can only be nominated by a politician from another political party, e.g. an MP could nominate a local councillor, or a Member of the House of Lords nominate an MSP.
We've named this new Award this year in honour of
Sir Daniel Stevenson's work to promote citizenship. We'd be interested in rotating the name in future years, so we'd love to hear from you if you have ideas of other figures who could be honoured in this way.
Is there a prize?The winning Politician of the Year will be able be able to nominate and award £3,000 to a charity of their choice. If the winner is an MP, we expect this to be a charity in their constituency. We hope that the chosen organisation will communicate that they received these unrestricted funds thanks to their representatives’ civil behaviour.
Is this open to people outside Westminster?Absolutely! We’re hoping to hear from people and organisations across the UK. That includes those in devolved institutions and local councillors. The non-elected influencer of the year is open to individuals and organisations. We believe they have an important role to play and want their efforts to be recognised too.
Will there be an awards ceremony?The 2022 Award winners will be announced at an event in January 2022.
How can we keep up to date with what is happening?Easy – sign up for our email updates! We will send subscribers news about the awards and update this website at the same time.
I'm from the press – how do I get in contact with you?You can send us a message on the
contact us page, or drop us an email on info@civilityinpolitics.org
What if I want to nominate someone who is a judge?Go ahead! Judges aren’t able to vote for themselves though.
If someone is the leader of a major party or candidate for a leadership contest can they win?After a bit of thought, the judges opted not to include the leaders of major parties at Westminster or candidates for leadership election. In the 2019 Awards, a small number of nominations from several parties were discounted due to this.
How is this being paid for?
The
Joseph Rowntree Reform Trust is supporting the awards. All judges (including the Steering Group members) are giving their time in kind. The
Jo Cox Foundation is helping co-ordinate activity.
How do I find out more?If you want to find out more about the awards, please
contact us.