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		Roger Helmer MEP receives ALEC’s "international legislator" award Friday, 4th August 2006 Local MEP Roger Helmer has been awarded the first "International Legislator of the Year" Award by the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC) at their annual conference in San Francisco. ALEC is a major Washington-based public policy institute that brings together over 2000 conservative state legislators from across the US, together with corporate partners, and is extending its programme to Europe. More than 20 MEPs have already joined. ALEC's "Legislator of the Year" award is well established, but this is the first time ever for the International Legislator award. Mr Helmer's citation is for "The advocacy of Jeffersonian principles", which include liberty, free markets and limited government and he has been an outspoken advocate of these values during his seven years as an MEP. At the Conference, Mr Helmer also met with Dr. Milton Friedman, the high priest of conservative economics, guru of the Chicago School of economics and Nobel Laureate. Although 94 years old, diminutive and frail, Friedman addressed a packed meeting and still retains a powerful voice and an incisive intellect. He spoke on the benefits of school voucher systems, under which funding follows the pupil, not the educational bureaucracy. Commenting on his award, Mr Helmer said "I am delighted to receive ALEC's first ever international legislator award. The award, a handsome bust of Thomas Jefferson with the citation on a brass plate on the base, is being shipped across from the States. For years I have done my best to work for the interests of the East Midlands, and of Great Britain. It is very gratifying to see these efforts recognised on the other side of the Atlantic". And speaking after the Milton Friedman meeting, Helmer said: "No other economist in a hundred years has had the same impact as Friedman, or made such a huge difference to our understanding of growth and prosperity. It was a huge privilege to shake his hand -- a bit like meeting Adam Smith or Edmund Burke".