Tom Watson MP made a throwaway comment on twitter yesterday which introduced me to the idea of the Parliamentary Tache of the Year.

So, at a time of year when politics seems to be even more back-biting and bitter than usual, and political bloggers are desperate to put the knife into someone on “the dark side” (although of course which is the dark side rather depends upon your own standpoint), I thought that we needed something a little more jovial to lighten the mood.

Let’s remember politics isn’t just about MP’s expenses, bitching backbenchers, and bile-spewing bloggers. It’s also about facial hair. So I’ve combed Parliament’s list of MPs in order to investigate which MPs are ‘tached up — at least according totheir parliamentary photo (the theory being is that if they can’t be bothered to keep their parliamentary photo up to date, I can’t be bothered to chase down recent photos either).

During this process I have learned a number of things. Firstly, when it comes to electing a government in the election this year, if you want facial hair to be a priority for the next government, you must vote Labour; over 12% of all Labour MPs were ‘tached up, compared to less than 1% of Conservatives. As you might expect, the Liberal Democrats sit somewhere between these two, with just under 7% having sporting a moustache.

…finally, having looked through photos of all of the male MPs (I’ve made the assumption that none of the females have a moustache, or at least one they are proud of) I’ve discovered that there is no requirement for someone to be even remotely physically attractive in order to become a member of parliament. Vaguely humanoid seems about the limit.

I went through some early rounds to determine exactly who would go through to the ‘final’. This was based on grouping those MPs with clearly visible ‘taches (bumfluff that the MP appears to be hiding is automatically disqualified) into 8 alphabetical groups, and picking the ‘tache which, in my opinion, is of the best quality for some reason of that particular group. My working is available here (word doc, 25 kb).

But for the finalists for ThePickards Parliamentary Tache Of The Year 2009, read on…

Tache	Owner	Vital Statistics
	Dave Anderson	2005-5335
	Colin Challen	2001-12343
	Wayne David	2001-15359
	Elfyn Llwyd	1992-6614
	Doug Naysmith	1997-8962
	John Thurso	2001-8168

Place your vote for your Parliamentary Tache of the Year 2009 by leaving a comment to the desired effect. Please note that as I’ve specifically said the competition is to lighten the mood and as an antidote to the backbiting and sniping, any comments which are unpleasant will be removed and associated votes will not be counted. The competition will close on Friday 15th January, please ensure your votes are in by then…