Payne, Benjamin and Ashcroft win Parliamentary Book Awards 

Books by Sebastian Payne, Baroness Floella Benjamin and Michael Ashcroft have been named the best political books of the year at the Parliamentary Book Awards.

Payne, a journalist and director of think tank Onward, received Best Political Book by a Non-Parliamentarian for The Fall of Boris Johnson: The Full Story (Macmillan) while Baroness Benjamin, a member of the House of Lords and children’s television presenter won Best Biography, Memoir or Autobiography for What Are You Doing Here?: My Autobiography (Macmillan), which recounts her journey from arriving in Britain as a child as part of the Windrush generation, to her career on television and subsequent damehood and peerage.

The prize for the Best Non-Fiction book by a Parliamentarian was awarded to Michael Ashcroft, former treasurer and deputy chairman of the Conservative party, for In The Shadows: The Extraordinary Men and women of the Intelligence Corps (Biteback Publishing) which tells the stories of some of its most courageous and ingenious figures, who have operated all over the world from the First World War to the present day.

This year’s winners were selected from a shortlist featuring books by former Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Matt Hancock, Conservative MP Andrea Leadsom and Shadow Secretary of State for levelling up, housing and communities Lisa Nandy, as well as prominent political journalists including Marina Hyde, writer and historian Owen Matthews, writer and poet Stu Hennigan and former diplomat Simon McDonald.

Meryl Halls, m.d. of the Booksellers Association, said: “A tumultuous year in Westminster politics has produced an eclectic set of winning titles; from describing the extraordinary men and women who served in the Intelligence Corps, to a brilliant portrayal of the very public psychodrama of the Boris Johnson years. And I’m delighted so see Baroness Benjamin winning with her autobiography which is also very much the story of Black Britain from the 1960s to more recent times.”

Dan Conway, chief executive of the Publishers Association, added: “A huge congratulations to this year’s winners. These books demonstrate the breadth of political writing in the UK and shed light on some of the most important moments and issues in recent history. The link between publishing and politics is longstanding and we are delighted to once again welcome parliamentarians, authors, publishers, and booksellers to the Houses of Parliament to celebrate these important works.”

Now in their seventh year, the Parliamentary Book Awards were established by the Booksellers Association and the Publishers Association to champion the best political writing in the UK and to “recognise the important link between the worlds of politics and publishing”. The only political book awards curated by bookshops and voted for by parliamentarians, previous winners have included Mark Carney, Penny Mordaunt MP, Andrew Mitchell MP, Harriet Harman MP, Nick Clegg, Baroness Jowell, Iain Dale, and James O’Brien.