18th November 2005

Award for asylum seekers' champions

Three Drumchapel schoolgirls last night were honoured for running the most effective and imaginative political campaign of 2005, after they took on the Home Office over the fate of fellow pupils facing deportation.

Jennifer McCarron, Rosa Salih, and Evelina Siwak accepted the prize for Public Campaign at the Herald Diageo Politician of the Year Awards, in front of 500 people from the worlds of politics, entertainment, sport and business at the Royal Museum in Edinburgh.

The trio – representing a group of seven pupils who became known as the "Glasgow Girls" - began their work in the spring, when the Murselaj family in Scotstoun faced removal to Kosovo after their asylum applications failed.

However it was their efforts on behalf of the Vucaj family, three children and their parents who were taken from their home in a dawn raid in September, which gained them national attention. Jack McConnell, first minister, agreed to meet them, and their cause was taken up by a cross-party group of MSPs.

Mark Douglas-Home, editor of The Herald and chairman of the judges, said: "The campaigner award is given in recognition of the girls showing how sensitive the Scottish Parliament has become to unexpected political voices.

"It would be inconceivable without devolution that school pupils could do what this group has done. It's good that devolved politics has allowed them to have a public voice."

Accepting the award for the public campaign of the year, Jennifer McCarron, 16, said: "This is not just for us, it's for the communities and for the people who understand where we are coming from. This is not just going to be a pat on the head for us, we are going to keep going till we get a success."

In the main category of the night, George Reid achieved a unique double by becoming the first person to receive the highest political honour north of the border for a second time.

Mr Reid last won the prize in 2003, following in the footsteps of Donald Dewar, Jim Wallace, Jack McConnell and Malcolm Chisholm. Last year's winner was Margaret Curran.

Accepting his award, Mr Reid said: "No-one ever said that after a 300-year adjournment it was going to be easy to pick up the thread of Scottish national life again, but we are doing it. We have moved in and we are moving on. I want to pay tribute to the staff of the Scottish Parliament and the members of the Scottish Parliament. I assure you they are hard-working men and women who put public service first in their lives."

The ceremony was sponsored for the second year by Diageo, the company behind some of the world's most famous drink brands, including Guinness and Johnnie Walker.

The ceremony also included a posthumous lifetime achievement award for Robin Cook, the late Labour MP and former foreign secretary, who died in August while walking in the Highlands aged just 59.

Accepting the award on behalf of his late father, Christopher Cook said: "I know it would have meant the world to him to have his life's work honoured this way and it means a lot to us as well."

Those presenting the awards included Allan Burns, director, Diageo Scotland, Mark Douglas-Home, editor of The Herald, Lee McConnell, the UK's number one 400m runner, Lloyd Saltman, the up-and- coming amateur golfer, Charan Gill, Glasgow's curry king, Maeve Gilchrist, the award-winning harpist and pianist, Lord Foulkes, the former Labour minister and ex-chair man of Hearts Football Club, and Shereen Nanjiani, the Scottish TV presenter.

The Best Scot at Westminster award went to Des Browne, for his handling of the exceptionally difficult immigration portfolio.

Alex Neil, the mischievous SNP MSP, was voted Donald Dewar Debater of the Year, for his consistently insightful and witty contributions in the chamber.

The committee award was won collectively by the nine MSPs of Holyrood's finance committee for their forensic scrutiny of the executive's budget claims.

The Free Spirit of the Year was Brian Monteith, who was judged to have won for his innovative ideas before he quit the Tory party for Independents' corner.

The inaugural Johnnie Walker award, given to the MSP whose progress and ideas most impressed the judges, was won by Labour's Wendy Alexander.

Mr Douglas-Home said: "The awards reveal that despite some disappointments, Scotland has a thriving political culture of high-calibre politicians in it."

The ceremony will be broadcast by Scottish TV and Grampian on Sunday evening.

The judges

Mark Douglas-Home, editor of The Herald; Allan Burns, director, Diageo Scotland; Douglas Fraser, Scottish political editor of The Herald; Catherine MacLeod, UK political editor of The Herald; Paul Hutcheon, political editor of the Sunday Herald; Brian Taylor, political editor of BBC Scotland; Bernard Ponsonby, political editor of Scottish TV; Michael Crow, political correspondent of Scottish TV; Brian Currie, political editor of the Evening Times; Professor James Mitchell, head of the department of government at Strathclyde University; Joe Quinn, Scottish political editor of the Press Association.

The Public Campaign of the Year

Drumchapel High School
Asylum Campaigners
Before the plight of the Vucaj family threw their work into the national spotlight, children at the school had been lobbying for six months to stop the children of local asylum seekers, their fellow pupils, being repatriated. Their relentless campaigning led to the children's commissioner condemning the Home Office's dawn raids on families, and to a nationwide debate on how to treat asylum seekers who had put down roots in Scotland.

Second: Glasgow Homoeo-pathic Hospital Patients

Third: Make Poverty History