Thursday
Feb032011
by 
Bishop Hill
Bishop Hill Orwell prize
Feb 3, 2011 Climate: HSI The Hockey Stick Illusion has been entered for the Orwell Prize, Britain's premier literary award for political writing. The (very long!) list of competing titles is here.
Reader Comments (19)
Bad luck, mate. Don't fancy your chances when you're up against the giant of political analysis Nick Boles MP.
Being nominated for any prize in the name of Orwell has to be good.
I looked at the (very long!) list. Yes, sure enough.
"Montford, Andrew The Hockey Stick Illusion Stacey International"
Rubbing fins with some real shark there. Matt Ridley is on the list too with The Rational Optimist. You have to do something about him, boss. ;)
It's definitely "entered" rather than "nominated". The publisher goes to them rather than the prize coming to us.
James
Looking over the panel of judges, I don't expect to go much further than this!
I wonder what Jim Naughtie will make of it..?
Agreed, your Grace. Anything better than 209th will be a result with Messrs Naughtie and Skidelsky on the panel.
@James P: I wonder what Jim Naughtie will make of it..?
... exactly what he's told to.
THS aught to be serialised in Nature, with a Josh cartoon accompanying each installment.
Funny, I read the Hockey Stick Illusion (with great pleasure and burning anger in equal measure) but never thought of it as political writing. That's more in Delingpole/Booker/North's line.
HSI was first rate popular science writing, I thought, though, of course, with enormous political implications.
Good luck.
And I'm sure Jim will read all 212.
/sarc
Nicholas
The Royal Society prize for science writing is no more. The Orwell prize defines political in a very broad sense, so I think it's OK.
I shall keep my fingers crossed, Your Grace, though in the present climate (whatever that is defined as this week) progress does seem a little unlikely.
(As a good Northumbrian of course I ought to be rooting for the next Viscount Ridley and The Rational Optimist is certainly deserving of consideration!)
I'm also keen on Juliet Gardiner's door-stop The Thirties: an Intimate History of Britain, (all 950 pages of it!) but then I speak as a historian.
I noticed a couple of names in the list which should keep some of liberal intellectual friends happy -- Tariq Ali and Fatima Bhutto to name but two.
Don't much fancy yer chances Bish.
The Orwell Prize outfit has been a marxist mafia for as long as I can remember.
Ironic really - that the legacy of the author of the little book that did more than any other to bring down collectivism should have been hijacked by its worshippers.
Gramsci would be proud.
Congrats!
I don't think your chances are statistically significant Bish ;^)
Aaw, how disappointing -- at first sight I imagined that the Orwell Prize was on the lines of the Darwin Awards, and would be for the most totalitarian screed published during the year, in which case there would be an even longer list from the ranks of the Warmists alone....
Ah well, as you've already noticed, Bish - with those judges:
This year’s judges are Jim Naughtie (journalist, presenter of BBC Radio 4 Today), Ursula Owen (founder of Virago Press, Free Word Centre) and Will Skidelsky (books editor, The Observer).
prepare to receive null points.
Mind - imho it will be an honour not to be given a prize by those judges!
How ironic.
i know the bbc and observer. virago press i had to wiki to learn its a rothschild outfit. nuss said.