ANDREW MARR : COLUMNIST OF THE YEAR

Andrew Marr, The Independent's political columnist was yesterday named columnist of the year in the What The Papers Say annual newspaper awards.

The judges said of his columns : "He was head and shoulders above all other columnists, he not only questioned the establishment, but made the readers challenge their own firmly held beliefs with a mixture of reasoned argument, intelligent conclusions and at times genuine outrage."

Andrew Marr's award winning column appears on the comment pages on Tuesdays and Thursdays