Michael Fallon is your Parliamentarian of the Year

Over the next week or so we'll be announcing the winners of ConservativeHome's 2007/08 Awards.  More than 8,000 people voted online to choose winners in a broad range of categories.

Winner of the Parliamentarian of the Year is Michael Fallon MP.  Mr Fallon beat other shortlisted MPs Nadine Dorries and Philip Hollobone.

A member of the Treasury Select Committtee Mr Fallon has been a vigorous critic of the Government's handling of the Northern Rock crisis and of the arrangements for supervision of the financial system instituted by Gordon Brown shortly after he became Chancellor.

Mr Fallon has also argued strongly for the Conservatives to take a stronger line on the growth of public spending.  He backed ConservativeHome's campaign for greater expenditure restraint from the day it was launched.  He has also used our pages to question the wisdom of Tory and Labour approaches to the taxation of non-doms.  The importance of breaking free from Labour's spending plans becomes more clear with every passing day.  The FT's Jean Eaglesham and The Spectator's Fraser Nelson are both concluding that tax relief may not be possible at all in the first parliament of a Tory government if the leadership continues to accept current restraints.

The thousands of conservatives who voted for Mr Fallon are not the only ones to notice his talents.  Benedict Brogan, Political Editor of the Daily Mail, has wondered why he isn't in the shadow cabinet:

"Pound for pound [Michael Fallon is] one of the most effective operators on the Tory benches? He offers a consistently robust Thatcherite critique of Labour's economic failings. As vice-chairman of the Treasury Select Committee, where he plays a nifty bad cop to John McFall's good cop, he has repeatedly skewered Gordon Brown and Alistair Darling, most recently on Northern Rock. Mr Fallon is a canny media operator who manages to generate more coverage than half the Shadow Cabinet. He must rank alongside David Davis and Chris Grayling as one of the biggest sources of Tory trouble for Labour."

Comments

[Veritas]

Richly deserved. Watch out George, finally there's a pro about.

[Mark Hudson]

As his former constituency Chairman in Sevenoaks, I can attest that Michael fully deserves this accolade. He's not only politically formidable, but, quite cimply, one of the most diligent and effective constituency Members too. Sevenoaks chose well.

[Jennifer Wells]

Many congratulations Michael. Please don't give up on public spending. Many families are cutting spending at the moment. The state needs to go on a diet too!

[Malcolm Dunn]

It's good to see a high profile Michael Fallon again. Perhaps it's me but he seemed to spend quite a few years out of the limelight.

[Sally Roberts]

Well deserved! Mr Fallon is a highly experienced Parliamentarian and dealt with the Northern Rock debacle very effectively.

[gingeral]

He's my local MP, nice to see him get some recognition at last, came to speak at our school a few years ago and I thought he was pretty impressive. I don't think he's interested in a shadow cabinet job though as he turned down a post under IDS (and it wasn't because he disliked IDS, he voted for him!)

[Praguetory]

Legend. On Treasury issues he runs rings around both front benches.

[Paul]

The only people worth listening to in the House on economic matters are Michael Fallon, John Redwood and Vince Cable (although I disagree with the latter's solutions to the problems). I am afraid George just doesn't cut the mustard, he may be fine for a loud partisan attack but certainly not for a detailed exposition of the financial and economic incompetence by this failed government.

[MartinW]

I have long considered that Michael Fallon should be in one of the top jobs in the shadow cabinet. I'll not name the job, but everyone knows which one I mean! A man of such experience is wasted on the back benches. Brown's economic policies have not yet been effectively dissected, and I believe that Fallon is the man to do it. He also comes over well on television.

[Martin Coxall]

@MartinW:

That's not going to happen, though, is it?

I think George has his nameplate firmly nailed to that particular door.

If we needed a man to orchestrate the repatriation of powers from the EU, a skilled operator like Fallon might be just the ticket.

[London Tory]

There is something faintly 'trainspotterish' about giving Michael Fallon this award.

Michael Fallon lost Darlington espousing precisely the views which Cameron and Osborne have correctly rejected, because they know [even if ConHome does not] that we have to win the Darlington's back to get into Government.,

And Fallon's old seat had a sizeable Labour majority last time I looked............

[TFA Tory]

London Tory, Darlington has only returned a Conservative MP when Margaret Thatcher was Prime Minister (1983 and 1987). It was the awful economic record of the Major government, e.g. ERM fiasco and negative equity, that cost him his seat. Your factional dig at Michael Fallon is pathetic. Get lost!!

[David Belchamber]

Paul at 13.18 repeats what so many of us have been saying for ages and I hope that sooner or later, DC will take notice:

"The only people worth listening to in the House on economic matters are Michael Fallon, John Redwood and Vince Cable (although I disagree with the latter's solutions to the problems). I am afraid George just doesn't cut the mustard...".

It is dispiriting, when none of the three main parties has many MPs with the requisite experience and competence to justify being made chancellor, that we have at least two but neither is chosen to shadow the post.