By Jonathan Isaby

Daily Telegraph – 3 January 2008

Congratulations to Tory defence spokesman Julian Lewis on winning the Royal United Services Institute's Trench Gascoigne Prize for the second time in three years.

It is unprecedented for the award – for an essay on defence and security – to have been won by the same person twice, let alone in so short a period.

"When RUSI awarded me the prize in 2005, it was on nuclear deterrence, an issue which I'd studied for many years,"

the New Forest East MP tells me.

"But as my topic this time was the much more urgent one of counter-insurgency, I'm especially glad that the judges found my arguments worthwhile."

The essay will appear in the RUSI Journal next month.