George Osborne has been named "Briton of the Year" for setting "the terms of political debate" with his austerity agenda and being "partly vindicated" by the onset of economic growth.
The title was awarded by the Times newspaper, which said in its leader column explaining the decision: "The decisions of the Chancellor have dominated British politics and a return to growth has partly vindicated him."
The newspaper went on: "There is a case that the whole of this parliament, if not just the politics of 2013, has been dominated by a single decision taken by one politician in 2010.
"That decision was the plan to eliminate Britain’s structural deficit within a single Parliament and that man was George Osborne, the Chancellor of the Exchequer. For resilience that has set the terms of political debate in Britain in 2013, Mr Osborne is the clear choice as Briton of the Year."
The award comes as Time magazine picked the Pope as its person of the year while the Guardian picked NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.