Lord Salisbury, the last UK PM with a beard, resigned 1902
Parliamentary Beard of the Year 2024 Final Beard Off Vote
Beard Liberation Front
10th December
Contact BLF Organiser Keith Flett @keithbeard.bsky.social
Parliamentary Beard of the Year: Jeremy Corbyn, Colum Eastwood, Robin Swann, Jon Trickett face off in Beard Off vote
The Beard Liberation Front, the informal network of beard wearers, has said that it faced an unprecedented challenge in drawing up its annual shortlist for the Parliamentary Beard of the Year.
However after much deliberation a shortlist was drawn up and after two preliminary rounds of voting the Final Beard Off vote is now open. In the first close shave round Robin Swann and Jon Trickett topped the poll of several thousand voters and go to the final Beard Off. In the second close shave round Jeremy Corbyn and Colum Eastwood triumphed.
The General Election on July 4th 2024 saw the departure of a large number of existing MPs- mostly clean shaven Tories- and the arrival of an equally large number of Labour and LibDem MPs.
While the existing Parliamentary Beard of the Year holder Alex Cunningham has stepped down as an MP the campaigners say they have now reviewed nominations for the 2024 shortlist.
Politics is a disputatious activity and the shortlist invariably draws comment from partisans.
The shortlist is NOT about the politics of the MPs on the list. It’s about whether their activities during the year have provided a positive image of the hirsute during the year. Obviously this can be disputed- how positive or otherwise- so the shortlist will go to a vote with the winner announced in mid-December.
BLF Organiser Keith Flett said, there is no question that the Parliamentary Beard of the Year shortlist is a challenge this year with so many new MPs but after reviewing nominations we have drawn up a list comprised of some veteran Parliamentary beard wearers together with some fresh faces as it were
Parliamentary Beard of the Year 2024 shortlist
An on-line poll will run in early December 2024. The vote is on Twitter, but responses here will be counted as well
The vote is on Twitter @kmflett but votes notified on other social media will also be counted
Jon Trickett (Labour)
Jeremy Corbyn (Independent)
Colum Eastwood (SDLP)
Andy McDonald (Labour)
Nick Timothy (Tory)
Shockat Adam (Independent)
Robin Swann (UUP)
Terry Jermy (Labour)
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