The votes are in and a clear winner has emerged: the most irritating politician in the country is Lord Mandelson.
The unctuous Labour peer is the popular choice for setting teeth on edge and making people throw things at the telly. In a YouGov poll for The Sunday Times this weekend, Mandy romped home with 40% finding him very irritating and a further 25% finding him fairly irritating.
Among people his own age, the numbers are even worse: 73% find Mandy, who has modestly named his new consultancy business Global Counsel, irritating. True admirers seem in short supply: a mere 5% of people found him “not irritating at all”.
Only Lembit Opik, the former Liberal Democrat MP who dated one of the Cheeky Girls, comes close. On average Opik annoys 63% of people.
It may come as a disappointment to Opik, an asteroid obsessive who fancies himself as a babe-magnet, that those who find him the biggest turn-off are women: 66% of women in the survey classed him as very or fairly irritating.
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The findings provide slight relief to Ed Balls, the shadow chancellor, who was last week accused by David Cameron of being “the most annoying person in modern politics”.
The prime minister made the remark after Balls persistently sniped at him during question time in the House of Commons. One MP observed: “To be irritating is far worse than being terrifying. People don’t like you — but nor do they take much notice of you.”
Though Balls undeniably annoys many, he is beaten by several colleagues: Gordon Brown, Harriet Harman and his party leader, Ed Miliband. Brown scored badly particularly among older voters, with 63% of those aged 60 or more finding him irritating. Harman, a south London MP, is most disliked in the capital, where 58% of people find her irritating.
Miliband at least has the virtue of some consistency. Men and women find him irritating in equal measure: 52% apiece. What ought to concern the Labour leader is that even among his own party supporters only 30% found him “not irritating at all”.
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By comparison, Cameron is at least liked by a majority of his party’s supporters: 54% of Conservative voters find he does not raise their hackles.
At first sight, politicians who are not seen as annoying might appear to have an electoral advantage. However, Peter Kellner, chairman of YouGov, believes that the public can make fine distinctions between likeability and effectiveness.
“For a politician the worst thing is to be ignored,” said Kellner. “Being thought of as irritating could be bad news, but it isn’t necessarily so.
“In the mid-1980s there was a poll that asked who is the politician you most admire and who is the politician you most loathe? Margaret Thatcher topped both lists.”
Perhaps such sentiments are at play with George Osborne, the chancellor. Polls show that a majority of people support the budget cuts he is pursuing. However, the YouGov poll also finds that a majority — 52% — find Osborne very or fairly irritating, which is level-pegging with Miliband and Nick Clegg, the Lib Dem leader.
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The man regarded by many MPs as irritant-in-chief is John Bercow, the former Tory MP who is now the Commons Speaker. Some 36% of the public agree. However, 46% said they didn’t know whether he was irritating or not. Kellner said: “They just haven’t a clue who he is.”
Public profile is everything to some politicians. So Opik, who hopes to run for London mayor, having lost his Commons seat last year, may be tempted to put a positive gloss on the survey results.
Stephen Pound, Labour MP for Ealing North, said: “Nothing would delight Lembit more than to be near the top of any poll.
“He is so desperate for publicity that I have an awful vision of him waterskiing naked past the House of Commons with a rose between his teeth and his modesty protected only by a yellow rosette saying Lembit for mayor.”