Booker Prize panel finds a suitably qualified celebrity

The organisers of the Booker Prize have been publicly scathing about the tendency of award panels to recruit celebrity judges. So it is perhaps no surprise their token injection of showbiz glamour into this year's judging panel comes with a Cambridge double first in English.

David Baddiel, who has written two well-received novels in addition to the comedy scripts for which he is best-known, joins a panel that is otherwise as safe and sensible as the rival Whitbread Prize has been showy in recent years.

Lisa Jardine, Professor of Renaissance Studies at Queen Mary University of London and a writer and broadcaster, will chair the panel for the £21,000 prize that will be announced in October. Apart from David Baddiel, she will be joined by the novelist Russell Celyn Jones, another university lecturer and novelist, Salley Vickers, and Erica Wagner, literary editor of The Times.

Judges have a heavy workload. They must wade through more than 100 volumes to select the longlist of 25, announced in mid-August, the shortlist a month later, and the eventual winner.

David Baddiel is not the first celebrity appointment to the Booker panel. In the past it has often had a token celebrity, includingthe jazz musician Benny Green, the actress Joanna Lumley and the TV presenter, Mariella Frostrup.

However, Martyn Goff, the prize's administrator, was publicly scathing three years ago when the rival Whitbread Prize chose the model, Jerry Hall, the actress, Imogen Stubbs, the comedian, Sandi Toksvig, and Ann Widdecombe MP as its judges.

He said the move "dumbed down" literary prizes and appeared to be a blatant attempt to upstage other awards.

In June 2000, Booker, the cash and carry company, merged with Iceland to form Iceland Group, now known as The Big Food Group. The Big Food Group now owns the prize but has asked administrators to find a new sponsor.