Foot in Mouth Award

The Foot in Mouth Award is awarded each year by the British Plain English Campaign for "a baffling comment by a public figure".

Winners

• 2010: Sports commentator Jamie Redknapp for misuse of the word "literally":

"These balls now – they literally explode off your feet."

• 2009: Peter Mandelson Received the award for a particularly baffling sentence about the Prime Minister Gordon Brown.

"Perhaps we need not more people looking round more corners, but the same people looking round more corners more thoroughly to avoid the small things detracting from the big things the prime minister is getting right."

• 2008: George W. Bush received a Lifetime Achievement Award for "his services to gobbledygook", including:

"I know what I believe. I will continue to articulate what I believe and what I believe – I believe what I believe is right."

• 2007: Former England manager Steve McClaren, who said:

"He is inexperienced, but he's experienced in terms of what he's been through", when assessing Wayne Rooney's abilities.

• 2006: Naomi Campbell, who said:

"I love England, especially the food. There's nothing I like more than a lovely bowl of pasta."

• 2005: Rhodri Morgan won his second award for this comment on police:

"The only thing which isn’t up for grabs is no change and I think it’s fair to say it’s all to play for, except for no change."

• 2004: Boris Johnson, who said on the TV programme Have I Got News For You:

"I could not fail to disagree with you less."

• 2003: United States Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld who said at a press conference:

"Reports that say that something hasn't happened are always interesting to me, because as we know, there are known knowns; there are things we know we know. We also know there are known unknowns; that is to say we know there are some things we do not know. But there are also unknown unknowns — the ones we don't know we don't know."

• 2002: Actor Richard Gere, who said:

"I know who I am. No one else knows who I am. If I was a giraffe and somebody said I was a snake, I'd think 'No, actually I am a giraffe.'"

• 2001: Artist Tracey Emin, who explained:

"When it comes to words I have a uniqueness that I find almost impossible in terms of art - and it's my words that actually make my art quite unique."

• 2000: Hollywood star Alicia Silverstone for her comments, quoted in the Sunday Telegraph:

"I think that [the film] Clueless was very deep. I think it was deep in the way that it was very light. I think lightness has to come from a very deep place if it's true lightness."

• 1999: Former England manager Glenn Hoddle. When asked by interviewer Trevor McDonald to explain his controversial comments on people with disabilities, he said:

"I do not believe that. At this moment in time, if that changes in years to come I don't know, but what happens here today and changes as we go along that is part of life's learning and part of your inner beliefs. But at this moment in time I did not say them things and at the end of the day I want to put that on record because it has hurt people."

• 1998: Cardiff AM Rhodri Morgan. In an interview with BBC Newsnight's Jeremy Paxman he was asked if he would stand again for the leadership of the Welsh Labour Party. Morgan replied:

"Does a one-legged duck swim in circles?"

• 1997: Nick Underwood of Teletubbies Marketing explained that:

"In life, there are all colours and the Teletubbies are a reflection of that. There are no nationalities in the Teletubbies - they are techno-babies, but they are supposed to reflect life in that sense."

• 1996: No winner.

• 1995: No winner.

• 1994: Gordon Brown, MP for his 'New Economics' speech. He covered:

"ideas which stress the growing importance of international co-operation and new theories of economic sovereignty across a wide range of areas, macro-economics, trade, the environment, the growth of post neo-classical endogenous growth theory and the symbiotic relationships between government and investment in people and infrastructures - a new understanding of how labour markets really work and constructive debate over the meaning and implications of competitiveness at the level of individuals, the firm or the nation and the role of government in fashioning modern industrial policies which focus on nurturing competitiveness."

• 1993: Former England cricket boss, Ted Dexter, who desperately tried to explain away another England defeat at the hands of the Australians by saying:

"Maybe we are in the wrong sign. Maybe Venus is in the wrong juxtaposition with something else. I don't know."

• 1992: No winner.

• 1991: No award, but special mention for United States Vice President Dan Quayle:

"We offer the party as a big tent. How we do that (recognise the big tent philosophy) with the platform, the preamble to the platform or whatnot, that remains to be seen. But that message will have to be articulated with great clarity."

See also

• Plain English Campaign
• Golden Bull Award

External links

• Foot in Mouth award and list of winners