THE JUDGES' THIRD CABINET
Prime Minister Deputy PM Chancellor Foreign Lord Chancellor Home Education/Employm Environment Leader of Commons Culture Cabinet Office International Develop Social Security Agriculture Leader of the Lords Trade/Industry Health Regions Defence Transport Treasury Chief Sec	Peter Mandelson Sven Eriksson Kenneth Clarke Prince William Nigella Lawson Martin Johnson Michael Heseltine Kate Winslet Harry Potter Tony Blair Peter Hain Tony Benn Michael Meacher David Blunkett Jack Straw Clare Short Alan Milburn Harriet Harman John Major Charles Kennedy Simon Hughes	64 43 42 35 32 31 30 28 25 25 24 22 22 19 18 17 16 14 14 14 13 548

Stand by now for real controversy over our Fantasy Politics game: the emergence, in our third cabinet, of Peter Mandelson as Prime Minister. The judges thought long and hard when they met on Tuesday 6 March, but there could be no doubt. Mandelson was winning a titanic battle of spin and, ahead of Sir Anthony Hammond's report on the events that led to his resignation, Mandelson had convinced both press and public that he was largely innocent. Whatever the truth, and it may change even as the NS goes to press, Mandelson deserved his position on his performance over the previous fortnight alone. He remains an erratic player, though, scoring 20 in the first judging round, -62 in the second and, now, 64 in the third.

His deputy is the triumphant new England football manager, Sven-Goran Eriksson, fresh from the team's 3-0 win over Spain.

Celebrities performed particularly well in this round, with Prince William scoring highly for his African safari, Martin Johnson for another crushing England rugby union victory, and Kate Winslet for wearing a low-cut black dress by Dolce & Gabanna at the Bafta awards and making the front pages of both the Mail and the Sun. More celebrities (including the ubiquitous Eminem) would have made the cabinet but the rules dictate an upper limit of six, thus allowing several underperforming front-benchers into some of the lowlier positions.

For the first time, Tony Blair scored well, after the smart body swerve which put the blame for foot-and-mouth disease on the supermarkets. Gordon Brown, previously the outstanding performer in the real Cabinet, was marked down for losing the spin battle over the London Underground against Ken Livingstone and Bob Kiley - the latter described him as the "Wizard of Oz" who was preventing a settlement of the dispute. David Blunkett was judged to have won his own battle against the former chief inspector of schools, Chris Woodhead. Blunkett told the Today programme that he would not indulge in personal attacks - then spent five minutes tearing Woodhead to pieces. Smart politics! Jack Straw and Alan Milburn were also marked up for making enemies of unpopular people - lawyers and hospital consultants, respectively.

But generally, the performance of the front benches remained sluggish. Ann Taylor made a rare impact, only to be marked down for a hairstyle on the BBC's Question Time that was so absurd as to make it impossible to concentrate on anything she was saying. On the Tory side, Francis Maude's hair also let him down badly, as did his (and William Hague's) overuse of the word "foreign". As for Theresa May, even the audience at the Tory spring conference laughed when Hague said "when Theresa May becomes education secretary. . ." Only three Tory front-benchers managed positive scores at all. (Archie Norman might have done better, but it was a bad week to be associated with a supermarket.)

Charles Kennedy was marked up for the Lib Dems' honesty on the need to raise taxes for health, education and other public services. But his invisible colleague Jenny Tonge was shown a red card for being boring and is out of the game. So is George Carey, in addition to those who got red cards in the last judging round. Lord Levy, the notorious fundraiser, tried to keep out of trouble by raising no funds (not publicly, at least) so the judges issued a yellow card. Tracey Emin and the Tweenies also got yellow cards. However, the Tories' Angela Browning, on a yellow card from the last judging round, stayed on the field because she asked Labour's Margaret Beckett for the date of the local elections. The press took this as a crafty attempt to find out the date of the general election; the judges couldn't decide whether this was a smart move or not (the plus and minus scores cancelled each other out) but it was enough to save her. Menzies Campbell also survived after getting on Radio 5 Live.

Those who got heavy minus scores included Gerry Adams, because a Republican bomb went off outside his control; Posh and Becks, for the latter's loss of form (though women judges awarded marks for Brooklyn's birthday); Jonathon Porritt, for failing to take advantage of the farming crisis; John Humphrys, for being the first person ever to be slagged off at length by the Independent's amiable columnist Donald Macintyre; Michael Portillo, for sending half the Tory spring conference delegates to sleep; and John Prescott, Lord Macdonald and Richard Branson, for obvious reasons.

The winning cabinet (ie, the highest-scoring cabinet) from those submitted by entrants will be announced next week. Bonus points go to suggestions for Minister without Portfolio: Lady Victoria Hervey, Billy Elliot, Julie Walters, Ian Hislop, Nicole Kidman.

The chart on the right includes not only the scores for the past fortnight's performances, but a cumulative score for the three rounds of the game so far. The reader with the highest cumulative score when the game ends in May gets a grand prize, awarded in addition to the fortnightly prizes.

To see the first judges cabinet click here. To see the second click here.