Earlier this week it was announced that The Private Eye Paul Foot Award for Investigative and Campaigning Journalism 2025 has been awarded to Patrick Butler & Josh Halliday, The Guardian, for their entry The Carer’s Allowance Scandal.
The Guardian’s winning investigation uncovered how vulnerable carers were taken to court for accidentally claiming carer’s allowance while working part-time – even when some of them had reported their earnings to the DWP. Since the investigation, Labour has set up an independent review into the system of carer’s allowance.
Now in its twenty-first year, the award was set up in memory of journalist Paul Foot who died in 2004, and recognises the UK’s most brilliant, talented and determined journalists working in the fields of investigative and campaigning journalism.
The 2025 awards ceremony was hosted in-person at BAFTA by Private Eye Editor Ian Hislop, who said: “Who cares?” adding “That’s the big question in Britain today and those are the people the winners wrote about so brilliantly.”
Pádraig Reidy, chair of judges, The Private Eye Paul Foot Award, commented: “It's a privilege for the judges to have a chance to spend serious time reading the UK's best reporting. This year's deserving winners, and the shortlisted reporters, all shared an admirable commitment to unearthing stories away from the daily grind of the news, setting the agenda instead of following it.”
A piece on the winner will run in the next print issue of Private Eye, out Wednesday 28th May. Interviews with the winners and the entire shortlist are available to listen to on the Private Eye Page 94 podcast.
The 2025 shortlist, in alphabetical order by journalist:
- Charlie Brinkhurst-Cuff, The Guardian/Reuters Institute - Out of Sight: Missing People campaign
- Patrick Butler & Josh Halliday, The Guardian - The carer’s allowance scandal
- Laura Hughes, Financial Times - Lead poisoning
- Aaron Walawalkar & Harriet Clugston, Liberty Investigates in partnership with Sky News, Metro and The Guardian - Inside UK universities’ Gaza protest “crackdown”
- Jim Waterson, LondonCentric - Lime bikes and broken legs
- Abi Whistance, The Liverpool Post - Investigation into The Big Help Project
This year’s judging panel, chaired by Pádraig Reidy, Little Atoms, was comprised of Julia Langdon, Political Journalist and Broadcaster; Sir Simon Jenkins, The Guardian; Helen Lewis, The Atlantic; Francis Wheen, Private Eye; Matt Foot, criminal defence solicitor; Janine Gibson, Financial Times; and Tristan Kirk, The London Standard and winner of the 2024 Paul Foot Award.
Patrick Butler and Josh Halliday join a distinguished list of journalists to have received the Paul Foot Award since it was established twenty-one years ago, including:
- 2024: Tristan Kirk, Evening Standard
- 2023: David Conn, The Guardian
- 2022: David Collins & Hannah Al-Othman, The Sunday Times
- 2021: Robert Smith, Financial Times
- 2020: Alexandra Heal, The Bureau of Investigative Journalism/Various Outlets
- 2019: Emily Dugan, Buzzfeed
- 2018: Amelia Gentleman, The Guardian
- 2017: Emma Youle, Hackney Gazette
- 2014: Heidi Blake & Jonathan Calvert (The Sunday Times) and Andrew Bousfield & Richard Brooks (Private Eye)
- 2013: David Cohen, Evening Standard
- 2012: Andrew Norfolk, The Times
- 2011: Nick Davies, The Guardian
- 2010: Clare Sambrook, End Child Detention Now campaign, Various Outlets
- 2009: Ian Cobain, The Guardian
- 2008: Richard Brooks (Private Eye) and Camilla Cavendish (The Times )
- 2007: Rob Evans & David Leigh (The Guardian) & Deborah Wain (Doncaster Free Press)
- 2006: David Harrison, The Sunday Telegraph
- 2005: John Sweeney, Daily Mail
Keep up-to-date with publishing news: sign up here for InPubWeekly, our free weekly e-newsletter.
