The Winner
Orwell is a hero and a model whom we vainly strive to imitate. To be associated with his name, as an Orwell Prize winner, is not just an honour but also a call to action.
Timothy Garton Ash, Journalism Winner, 2006
To see a complete list of winners, click here.
)
Polly Toynbee – The Independent
Columnist,
The Independent
Polly Toynbee is a political and social commentator on The Guardian. She was the Social Affairs Editor at the BBC, and has worked for the Observer, The Independent and The Washington Monthly, USA. Her books include: A Working Life, a study of unskilled work; Hospital, a study of the NHS; Lost Children: Stroy of Adopted Children Searching for Their Mothers; and, more recently, Hard Work: Life in Low Pay Britain. Together with David Walker she wrote Did Things Get Better?: An Audit of Labour's Successes and Failures and Better or Worse?: Has Labour Delivered? auditing Labour's first two terms.
She has won the Orwell Prize, Columnist of the Year at the National Press Awards and the Political Studies Association's Political Journalist of the Year award. She is president of the Social Policy Association, and Chair of the Brighton and Hove Arts Festival. She is a visiting fellow of Nuffield College, Oxford and sits on the board of the Political Quarterly. She has four children and lives in Lambeth.