Focus: The People of the Year

This time last year Britain was facing up to life without one of its great annual institutions - the Today programme's People of the Year poll. According to the BBC, the poll was being rigged. Suspicious of the frequency with which the names of certain political leaders kept cropping up, Today dropped the idea, and a harmless bit of fun appeared to have perished at the hands of spin-doctors.

That was when the Independent on Sunday stepped in by launching its own People of the Year poll. We asked for your nominations for Man of the Year and Woman of the Year, and the spirit of the times deemed it necessary to introduce a third category: for Villain of the Year. It clearly struck a chord with readers, whose votes reflected the ambivalence felt about so many of today's public figures. One person's Man of the Year was another's Villain, as Tony Blair and Earl Spencer (prominent in both lists) discovered.

No doubt it will be the same in 1998. For while outright villainy remains the province of very few - and this year would appear to come down to a straight fight among Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic and Osama bin Laden - the really interesting question centres on attitudes to figures about whom it is plainly much harder to be objective.

By the simple criterion of how much interest he has generated, one man stands head and shoulders above the rest. But as a semblance of order returns to the presidency of Bill Clinton, what are we to make of him? Is he Man of the Year, or Villain, or both? And will IoS readers take their cue from the US public, who so confounded the media and political establishment with the forbearance they showed towards their leader?

Whatever the outcome, the main protagonists in the Clinton sex scandal will surely take some beating. Both Hillary Clinton and Monica Lewinsky must be leading contenders for Woman of the Year, and without Kenneth Starr we would never have known quite how far Clinton's fondness for cigars went.

As long as Clinton-Lewinsky was on the boil, other world events just didn't grip the way they might have. Yet this will go down as the year of brinkmanship, when conflagration was just around the corner, and the slam of a door in a meeting room could have ended it all for thousands of people.

What price Kofi Annan, therefore, as Man of the Year? With the West twice poised to wreak destruction on Iraq, the UN Secretary-General has played a crucial role in keeping what passes for peace. Richard Holbrooke banged heads together in the Balkans. And then there was the Good Friday agreement in Belfast.

Mo Mowlam wasn't voted Woman of the Year last year just because of her work as Northern Ireland secretary. She was admired as a person - for her forthrightness, her honesty, and her courage in coping with serious illness. But it was Ulster that sealed her reputation as a political player, and if anything this was an even bigger year for her than 1997.

If that makes Ms Mowlam a good bet to retain her title, the men who predominated in the Northern Ireland peace process can also feel entitled to recognition. John Hume and David Trimble already have the Nobel peace prize to show for their efforts; Gerry Adams, some felt, should have shared in it; Tony Blair, meanwhile, achieved something beyond any of his five predecessors going back to the start of the Troubles.

Perhaps because there were higher causes being fought for, the seamy side of politics were less of a feature in 1998 - at least until the Ron Davies affair. Our preoccupation with sleaze in 1997 was clear not just from the prominence of Jonathan Aitken and Neil Hamilton in the Villains' list, but the presence of the saintly Martin Bell at No. 2 in the Man of the Year poll. Geoffrey Robinson did his bit this year with his offshore holdings and tax arrangements, while Derry Irvine found ways to spend public money that caused widespread consternation.

New light was shed on others: George Michael, for example. Bill Gates was no longer the golden boy of the electronic age; Desmond Lynam had a great World Cup but a rotten time at the hands of the tabloid press; Richard Branson was, as usual, rarely out of the headlines, but as far as his trains were concerned, for the wrong reasons.

We specialise in fallen heroes, and 1998 threw up more than its share. For a few days in the summer it looked as if there could be only one true villain of 1998 - David Beckham, though the time may have come to give the poor boy a break. Weaknesses of one kind or another beset a clutch of sporting stars. There was Geoffrey Boycott, humiliated in a French court; the "love rat" Will Carling; and the perennially troubled Paul Gascoigne. Sport's pure achievers - still too young for any demons to take hold - were Michael Owen and Tim Henman.

If standing up for what you believe in counts, then spare a thought for the following: Danbert Nobacon, the "anarchist" who threw a bucket of water over John Prescott; Dana International, trans-sexual winner of the Eurovision Song Contest; Michael Birkett, the vice-consul in Ibiza who resigned in protest at the behaviour of young British holidaymakers; and Butch and Sundance, the Tamworth Two, who made a bid for freedom. It was a good year also for Kate Winslet, Nicole Kidman, Geri Halliwell, Oprah Winfrey, Delia Smith and Prince Charles and Camilla Parker Bowles. The Queen moved closer to her people and it did her no harm. A posthumous award should not be ruled out: at the time of his death, Ted Hughes's literary standing had never been higher.

Those whom we admire unreservedly are, by definition, a very special breed. One thinks, this year, of Doreen and Neville Lawrence, parents of the murdered Stephen; Paul McCartney, as devoted a widower as he was a husband; Aung San Suu Kyi, still fighting for freedom in Burma; Arthur Titherington, campaigning on behalf of PoWs in Japan; and a much older soldier called Arthur - 100-year-old Arthur Halestrap, who spoke at the Menin Gate on the 80th anniversary of the Armistice. At 80, Nelson Mandela remained a moral giant. It wasn't a bad year in which to be getting on in fact, and if John Glenn was voted Man of the Year, nobody aged 77 - or indeed anyone else - would have much objection. But the choice is yours.

LAST YEAR'S WINNERS

Men of the Year: 1 Tony Blair, 2 Martin Bell, 3 Earl Spencer, 4 Chris Patten, 5 Gordon Brown, 6 Nelson Mandela, 7 the Prince of Wales, 8 Billy Deacon, 9 Ken Livingstone, 10 Paddy Ashdown

Women of the Year: 1 Mo Mowlam, 2 Clare Short, 3 Cherie Blair, 4 The Queen, 5 Ann Widdecombe, 6 Dolly the Sheep, 7 Angela Eagle, 8 Mary Robinson, 9 Louise Woodward, 10 Jody Williams

Villain of the Year: 1 Jonathan Aitken, 2 Neil Hamilton, 3 Saddam Hussein, 4 Winnie Mandela, 5 Tony Blair, 6 Peter Mandelson, 7 Harriet Harman, 8 Earl Spencer, 9 Christine Hamilton, 10 Mike Tyson