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The Threadneedle/Spectator Parliamentarian of the Year Awards

Wednesday, 21st November 2007

This year’s winner stormed to prominence with a devastating critique of the EU Reform Treaty. His European Scrutiny Select Committee demonstrated in cool analysis and then heated face-to-face exchanges that the Reform Treaty was substantially the same as the fallen Constitution and that the deal Britain had struck was not quite as marvellous as ministers claimed.

PEER OF THE YEAR

The Rt Hon the Baroness Thatcher

This year’s award went to a peer who is, in fact, without peer. The judges were struck not only by her continued grip on the national imagination but by the enthusiasm with which senior parliamentary figures — not to mention visiting international statesmen — still flock to her side.

SPEECH OF THE YEAR

The Rt Hon William Hague MP

William Hague is living proof that the age of great parliamentary rhetoric is not quite dead. His speech on 20 March, to commemorate the bicentenary of the abolition of the slave trade, was a tour de force. It laced together a rich understanding of history with a profound sense of the contemporary. The judges were also impressed by his cheek in managing to get a plug for his new book — a biography of Wilberforce — into paragraph two.

RESIGNATION OF THE YEAR

The Rt Hon Tony Blair

As exits go, this one rivaled the final season of The Sopranos. There was just so much of it: from a school playground, to last year’s Labour conference, to the final farewell in the Commons on 27 June. The judges felt that the former PM’s ‘Blairwell’ tour was vindicated by his magnificent final performance. ‘I wish everyone, friend or foe, well and that is that, the end,’ said Blair. And — friend or foe — the Commons gave him a standing ovation.

MINISTER TO WATCH

Liam Byrne MP

As health minister, Byrne earned his ministerial spurs in some tough battles, and proved himself an eloquent speaker, but it is in his current role as minister of state for borders and immigration that the judges felt he had, in mafia terms, made his bones. Some in his party talk of him as a future leader. His current job will make or break that ambition.

MARATHON MAN OF THE YEAR

The Revd and Rt Hon Dr Paisley

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Labour’s punishment freaks are hounding honest citizens

Ross Clark

Ross Clark says that far from keeping our streets safer or cleaner, the government’s new force of amateur policemen are ignoring the worst offenders and pursuing law-abiding innocents instead

‘Whoever killed Benazir wants to kill me’

Christina Lamb

Christina Lamb interviews the husband of the late Benazir Bhutto, Asif Ali Zardari, who hopes to be named President of Pakistan this Saturday

Never mind the Olympics — get set for the Jubilee

Robert Hardman

Free and open to everyone, the Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in 2012 will eclipse the London Games, says Robert Hardman — an unforgettable tribute to the monarch

A pilgrim’s progress for the 21st century

Mary Wakefield

Mary Wakefield talks to the author William P. Young, whose self-published religious novel has astounded the publishing world and sold nearly two million copies

In defence of David Southall

Theodore Dalrymple

Theodore Dalrymple examines the evidence against two much-vilified British paediatricians, Professors Southall and Meadow, and finds it sadly lacking

Economic recovery plan? Forget it, Gordon

Martin Vander Weyer

The Prime Minister’s survival is pinned on a September ‘relaunch’ to ease the voters’ economic woes. But, says Martin Vander Weyer, each door through which Brown tries to escape his predicament slams in his face. His room for manoeuvre is negligible

‘I’m not an ambassador for New Labour, I’m an MP’

Martin Rowson

In the latest of his occasional series, Martin Rowson talks to Bob Marshall-Andrews, serial Labour rebel who had the entertaining cheek to accuse Miliband of disloyalty

‘There is nothing saying Labour will ever win power again’

Fraser Nelson

The choice facing the governing party is between defeat and annihilation, says Fraser Nelson. For now, Labour is mired in ‘division without decision’ as Jack Straw, David Miliband and others wait to see who — if anyone — will wield the knife against Gordon Brown

If the liberal press is to be believed, nobody has ever been stabbed — ever

Rod Liddle

Rod Liddle imagines the hoodie at home, allegedly innocent of any wicked intent, arming himself with a Stanley knife only because of the supposed alarmism of the right-wing media

Very discreetly, Cameron is writing his first Queen’s Speech

Fraser Nelson

In spite of their commanding poll lead, the Tories are terrified of seeming complacent. But, as Fraser Nelson discloses, work is well advanced on a first-term plan for government in which education reform and a welfare revolution will be the centrepieces