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Have my babies Dan Hannan (UK Politics thread)
Mr Ray
Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
Sarcasm sphereRegistered User regular
Soo this is my first try at an OP please be gentle 
So there's this guy you might have heard of called Daniel Hannan. Conservative MEP for the South East of England? Bald guy? No?
Well watch this then you uncultured swine*.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
There's a couple more videos of him on youtube, mostly from the same conference. I'll let those that want to seek them out for themselves and not clog up the OP.
In under a week, Dan Hannan has gone from someone who's name I'd vaguely heard of to the idol of the youtube-watching masses. Which brings me nicely to my next point... the mainstream media in the UK pretty much ignored the entire thing. In contrast to the U.S. which not only broadcast the story, but gave Hannan a lengthy interview. He says he would have voted Ron Paul.
Now I'm not expecting the labor government to fall apart because one guy puts the right words together in the right order, but the whole affair was treated with an air of "oh those funny internet peoples and their memes".
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/janet_daley/blog/2009/03/27/dan_hannan_shames_the_bbc_and_proves_need_for_broadcasting_freedom
I think it would not be too controversial of me to suggest that this country is perhaps not as permissive as it once was. I hear the word "police state" thrown around a lot, and while I think that might be a bit of an exaggeration, there has been an awful lot of police action against such heinous crimes as "being a protester" and "wilfully owning a camera". And of course you can always be arrested for "looking a bit terroristy".
Frankly, its starting to get silly. We didn't elect our prime minister, and even his party didn't elect him. Who would? He had the opportunity to call an election after he got in but didn't because he was afraid he'd lose (and would have). He pushed the Lisbon treaty through even after the public voted in favor of a referendum, he regularly introduces new legislation rather than enforce existing laws (to be fair this seems to be labor's "thing" as a whole), and on top of all this, he is the most boring man alive. With an illuminati complex.
So why are we stuck with this uncharismatic dullard? The fact is, the opposition just isn't there. The Lib-dems have some good ideas, but are hardly the magical solution they claim to be (on top of being disorganised as hell and more focussed on slandering the opposition than getting their shit together). The Conservatives are gaining popularity, but I have my doubts we'd be much better off with David "down with the kids" Cameron in charge. Actually I don't have any logical critisism of Cameron, he just rubs me the wrong way is all...
And then we have the likes of UKIP and the BNP, the popularity of whom is rising alarmingly. This is a thing that is not OK.
So what to we think? Is Hannan going to be the white Obama to lead us to salvation, or just another noisy Tory dissenter?
Is the damage reversable, or are our children going to be dealing with the fallout of labour's "borrow your way out of debt" strategy?
And most importantly, at what point do we break out the fucking torches and pitchforks?
*No I hadn't heard of him either until just recently
So there's this guy you might have heard of called Daniel Hannan. Conservative MEP for the South East of England? Bald guy? No?
Well watch this then you uncultured swine*.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=94lW6Y4tBXs
There's a couple more videos of him on youtube, mostly from the same conference. I'll let those that want to seek them out for themselves and not clog up the OP.
In under a week, Dan Hannan has gone from someone who's name I'd vaguely heard of to the idol of the youtube-watching masses. Which brings me nicely to my next point... the mainstream media in the UK pretty much ignored the entire thing. In contrast to the U.S. which not only broadcast the story, but gave Hannan a lengthy interview. He says he would have voted Ron Paul.
Now I'm not expecting the labor government to fall apart because one guy puts the right words together in the right order, but the whole affair was treated with an air of "oh those funny internet peoples and their memes".
Yes indeed, Dan Hannan has become a global internet phenomenon. And he is absolutely right to say that the stupendous impact of his speech proves that the web is a new force in the political game. But it is also true, as so many commenters and bloggers have noted, that this entire incident constitutes a shameful note in British broadcasting history - perhaps even a turning point. For this splendid speech and all the dramatic significance of a prime minister having to face a relentless critique across a democratic chamber, was ignored not just by the BBC but by all of the mainstream television and radio news media in this country. To put the final twist on this ignominious story, Fox News in the US - for whom British domestic politics are not generally a top priority - both carried the speech and gave Dan a lengthy interview.
Belatedly, and presumably out of sheer embarassment, one BBC programme, The Daily Politics showed a brief clip of the speech followed by a discussion between two bloggers - the whole segment being designed to depict this phenomenon as a rather amusing internet story rather than a political one. On the BBC website, the item is now being carried under a headline implying that an obscure MEP has become a surprise hit on the web by attacking Gordon Brown: so Dan's speech is categorised as a kind of weird popular oddity, like a skate-boarding duck. But the really significant thing to remember is that it was not just the BBC that systematically ruled his performance out: all of the news and current affairs programmes on the terrestrial and digital channels did the same. (Channel Four's seven o'clock news eventually made an effort, on very similar lines to The Daily Politics: this was a story about the power of the internet.)
What must we conclude? That there is a pernicious consensus in news broadcasting about what matters and what should be conveyed to the public. It has very little to do with what the public wishes to know and hear. It has a great deal to do with the regulation of news broadcasting which stipulates a statutory "neutrality": what this amounts to is a narrow set of criteria for what counts as being acceptable and of mainstream concern. You can interpret this as journalistic laziness, cowardice, lack of imagination or something more sinister - but we have now had a quite dramatic illustration of how pervasive and restricting it is. It is time that we liberated news broadcasting - particularly on radio and the digital channels - to be as politically lively and differentiated as it is in the US. Then you could choose your news broadcaster just as you do your newspaper, on the basis of its convictions. Maybe then we would have a chance of seeing and hearing things that, at the moment, nobody wants us to know about.
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/janet_daley/blog/2009/03/27/dan_hannan_shames_the_bbc_and_proves_need_for_broadcasting_freedom
I think it would not be too controversial of me to suggest that this country is perhaps not as permissive as it once was. I hear the word "police state" thrown around a lot, and while I think that might be a bit of an exaggeration, there has been an awful lot of police action against such heinous crimes as "being a protester" and "wilfully owning a camera". And of course you can always be arrested for "looking a bit terroristy".
Frankly, its starting to get silly. We didn't elect our prime minister, and even his party didn't elect him. Who would? He had the opportunity to call an election after he got in but didn't because he was afraid he'd lose (and would have). He pushed the Lisbon treaty through even after the public voted in favor of a referendum, he regularly introduces new legislation rather than enforce existing laws (to be fair this seems to be labor's "thing" as a whole), and on top of all this, he is the most boring man alive. With an illuminati complex.
So why are we stuck with this uncharismatic dullard? The fact is, the opposition just isn't there. The Lib-dems have some good ideas, but are hardly the magical solution they claim to be (on top of being disorganised as hell and more focussed on slandering the opposition than getting their shit together). The Conservatives are gaining popularity, but I have my doubts we'd be much better off with David "down with the kids" Cameron in charge. Actually I don't have any logical critisism of Cameron, he just rubs me the wrong way is all...
And then we have the likes of UKIP and the BNP, the popularity of whom is rising alarmingly. This is a thing that is not OK.
So what to we think? Is Hannan going to be the white Obama to lead us to salvation, or just another noisy Tory dissenter?
Is the damage reversable, or are our children going to be dealing with the fallout of labour's "borrow your way out of debt" strategy?
And most importantly, at what point do we break out the fucking torches and pitchforks?
*No I hadn't heard of him either until just recently
Mr Ray on
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So I am happy enough to accept that it wasn't bias at least initially that resulted in this speech being ignored, it was just the general "lolEuropeanParliament" attitude of the media and the media consumers (us). I bet all sorts of random and interesting crap goes on there which we rarely hear about. Perhaps after the story became big (via US media?) then there is a valid complaint about the coverage. Regarding the US coverage, well, that often happens - a story is broken by an outsider because the outsider has a different frame of reference or doesn't hold the biases of the locals. Can't see the forest for the trees etc.
Regarding his message, well I have a bit of sympathy for some of his views. It has been downright irresponsible of the UK (and anyone else in the same case) to have been running long term large budget deficits outside of economic recession. It basically means that sometime in the next 18 months I think the UK is going to have to make sustained deep cuts to government spending, that will be fast and brutal, which will deepen the impact of the recession to the country and to people on an individual level. Which is going to suck mightily as if the government can't afford to step in to help then who will?
Don't get me wrong, I understand and support universal healthcare, universal education, the general modern liberal state, but only so long as we can actually afford it in the long term.
Regarding your other points, well I think the UK has a weak opposition for a couple of reasons:
1. A shit national electoral system. First Past the Post (aka loads of individual electorates represented by the simple majority winner of the votes) combined with really strong party discipline makes it harder for smaller parties to have a real impact on the national parliament. The Lib Dems are an ok party but they will never break through past the two main parties at the national level without some extreme crisis (WW1 + the Depression + a massive split sunk them as one of the two main parties), or unless they get to go into coalition with Labour or the Tories next election. If that latter point happens then we will see the first serious attempt to reform the UK's voting system, and they will be pushing a proportional representation system of some kind. This of course assumes they get into coalition, which very rarely happens (back to WW1/Depression/WW2). Then you have all the national/ or regional parties...
I actually quite like the Lib Dems and think they are doing an ok job. Vince Cable, their Shadow Chancellor (Minister of Finance/Secretary for the Treasury etc) is about the only major politician out there who's opinion I respect about the economic crisis. At least in my case he gets that respect because he called it correctly (and before it happened) and seems able to explain the confusion better than most. I actually think he understands what he is talking about and has thought deeply about what we could do differently next time/or now
2. Re Brown not being elected. Well, this is how your system works, so why complain now? The PM is the leader of the parliamentary party with the most seats. That party chooses him, and they chose him, so we have got him. This is how it has worked for a long time. The parliamentary Labour Party could have at anytime rolled him if they wanted to, but not enough of them do, so he is our PM until they grow a pair
And it's not like he's saying anything that David Cameron hasn't said in parliamentary question time. And for the fucking Telegraph to complain that the mainstream media doesn't report on what happens in the European Parliament is fucking outrageous hypocrisy.
Why has this become and internet sensation, I'm not seeing anything sensational about it.
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Not to mention that the "US news organization" that played the speech and gave him an interview was...Fox News.
Seriously, that pretty much says it all.
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Yeah this is all stuff the political and media classes in the UK have heard before, so they're not going to make a big deal out of it. Plus the main conservative groups that agree with him would recoil from using it as a big issue as soon as they got to 'MEP' - making Europe seem effective/interesting is not on the agenda.
He does appear a to be good speaker and uses some nice imagery so he might get more play for soundbites in the future. Also 'voting Ron Paul'? Really?
As to the political system, yeah we're getting moderately screwed by FPP, especially since the party lines have settled down along population density contours. Moving nationally to instant run-offs and slightly larger voting areas like the London elections would be a step in the right direction I think. Strong party discipline has been how the UK system has worked for two centuries, so I doubt its going to change now (especially as it does have some advantages), but moving to a position where the majority party has to court a smaller one might help.
Edit: To the OP Re Browns leadership; Labour could have had a leadership election but it would a) have made them look unstable and b) Brown wouldn't have been challenged anyway from within the party at that stage so why run the risk? Which is how things are supposed to work, with the cabinet working as a team - admittedly set up before the PM took on the 'Presidential' stylings of recent decades.
I also think you're overreacting on the Police state thing, and this is from a guy who got taken to Police station for the terrible warning signs of having long hair and carrying a rope.
I realise this has little if anything to do with the quite interesting discussion at hand, but...what was the rope for?
On a more serious note, I think people who trumpet the 'police state' line aren't honestly suggesting Britain has gone this far - they're just comparing the country today with the country as they perceived it 10 years ago, and performing a pessimistic extrapolation. It's not overreacting to state that a certain amount of Labour legislation has been following a very clear line of increased state control, and it is not unreasonable to disagree with this direction.
OT, I think the Dan Hannan speech is viewed as significant purely because it is an excellent example of both rhetoric and straight talking, and therefore 1) is increasingly rare in British politics, and 2) provides a series of neat jumping-off points for the media.
It was a 50 metre bright pink climbing rope I couldn't fit in my rucksack (which was I going to use for rock climbing that weekend after work) - and apparently they had gotten a tip off about a 'Fathers for Justice' building climber who vaguely matched my desription (this was in central London btw). I found it throughly hilarious, after the shock of several policemen suddenly running up behind me wore off. Whilst I'm pretty sure I could have not gone with them, I thought going to the station and being compared with the photo would result in the least fuss as I foolishly didn't have any ID on me (I also wanted them to write a note explaining why I was late for work...that I used the next time I needed a lie in
Eh, you get pretty speaches like this made every week in the house of commons, while I see their point I'd be more interested when the Conservatives come up with some viable alternative plans. I'm annoyed with Labour bailing out the bankers who helped cause this mess with rather less oversight than I'd like, the Conservatives are the bankers.
The difference being that I can now vote for both the party and the electorate candidate, so if I live in a safe electorate held by someone who's beliefs or party I hate, I can still have a vote that counts, that will still have a chance to select a MP (via party vote), despite my wasted local electorate vote. Now this isn't perfect, and I'm sure there are other PR systems that might be better, but it is streets ahead of FPP. Further, we have now had a decade of stable, coalition government, where every coalition is made up of at least 50% +1 voter support, which is (historically) pretty fucking rare by Westminster standards.
From what seemed to start off with what Cameron seemed to be putting forward and my impressions of the party til then it seemed like they would have been the holy grail as far as a lot of the 'conservative' posters on PA in the US would be after. A low-taxes, pro-business party without the religious foolery that plagues the republicans. Yet despite wanting to reinvent the party at the beginning of his leadership as something more in touch with modern concerns its done its best to reduce itself and politics in general to the level of their american counterparts.
I'm sure a good deal of that can be laid at the feet of Blair's sucesses, but it seems to be the conservatives who seemed to have taken it that step further and completely embraced the Daily Mail/Fox news side of things.
I...what? Then how will they get a PM candidate for your snap election? Don't be silly, the whole point of voting for a party in the Westminister system is that we don't invest everything in one man, and the party that shares our views can pick the best man for the situation i.e. get a Chamberlain to fix the economy and then swap him out when the War starts. The fact that Labour just agreed with a backroom dealing annoys me, but they should have had a vote of the MPs, or at most a party conference rather than a general election.
Well it's good politics when facing the centrist Labour, make vague soundbites as any concrete ideas you have will be stolen if they're good and derided if they're bad. Generate a culture of dislike for Labour and eventually ride back into power.
They put someone forward for it, there should generally be at least one other person with a decent presence in the public eye.
Remember, in the UK we're investing in the least worst party, not the right one and them appointing their own leader who completely shits on the values that we invested in? I'd rather have a snap election with a nobody running for PM.
The likelyhood is that you're right, Hannon will never be anything more than an MEP. The reason for this is he's almost as much of a headache for Cameron as he is for Brown. What shocked me wasn't his message, or the lack of media cover. What shocked me was holy shit someone charismatic in UK politics right when it seems like a complete lack of personality is a prerequisite. And one who won't just parrot the party line at that. Even if he goes nowhere, his overnight internet celebrity status pretty much guarentees we'll be seeing something interesting from him in the future. I just wanted to bring him to people's attention really.
The thing is, he's bang on the money. We can't spend our way out of recession, and we can't borrow our way out of debt. I can forgive Brown for not seeing the "economic crisis" coming, but I really really can blame him for his subsequent worsening of the situation. The phrase "driving the economy into the ground" springs to mind.
I'm not claiming there's some magical solution, i'm basically just saying "Hay guyz, things are pretty shit, M I rite?" Critisism of the government on the internet, how novel!
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Most of us at some point in our lives have probably wished we could tell a Congressman, Senator, President, etc, just what we think. But who among us really gets that kind of access?
I think that's the driving force behind the popularity of this - we often wish we had the chance to verbally slap our leaders around, so it makes us happy to see someone get the chance.
I don't think the non-reporting of this Hannan's speech was terribly sinister.
It seems to appear that a lot of the coverage is just because other people in the States want to use him to further/ or support their own views on the US domestic response to the financial crisis
But this isn't unusual in British politics (or indeed in any parliamentary system). This (as in people standing up and hurling insults at the Prime Minister) happens every Wednesday in the Houses of Parliament at 12:00 during Prime Minster Question Time.
Have a watch: http://www.number10.gov.uk/number-10-tv/prime-ministers-questions
This is so totally run-of-the-mill that it's really taken me a long time to work out what all the fuss is about. The Prime Minster is not the President. If Hannan had been saying that to the Queen then that would be news.
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