Ian Hislop

Certainly wouldn't happen now.

Jonathan Aitken, his obsessive campaign against him, again, which ended with a win.

The great sword of justice was blunted and Aitken had to...

apologize, give up, and then he went to jail.

The great thing about Paul, though, he took all this stuff incredibly seriously, but he wanted journalism to be fun and for it to be enjoyable and life-enhancing.

And I remember with Jonathan Aitken, he'd sued us, we were in serious trouble, and I said, I'm thinking of putting in a fake apology.

Paul thought was funny and said, why don't you put it in?

We did put it in.

Jonathan Aitken didn't think it was funny.

He renewed a claim for exemplary damages, which he may well have got.

I don't remember the end of the story.

The point of the story is that the great thing about Paul, and it's the reason the prize is named after him, is he was passionate about journalism, but he wanted it to be entertaining and he knew that to get people to read a story, particularly

a story of any length, it had to be entertaining, accessible, and worth reading.

And Paul, he could make you sad, he could make you furious, he could make you laugh, and he could make you care, which is quite difficult nowadays, and particularly when he was presenting his stuff to me.

So what I'm going to do is announce the winner, invite them to come up and get their check, and then invite all of the people on the shortlist.

So this is the moment.

The Pallfoot Awards 2026 goes to Peter Gagan and Kaditha Shari.

Is this what we're meant to be looking for?

Is that reform isn't just home counties?

It's not seaside towns.