HANNAN ON YOUTUBE

I am as jealous as hell of Dan Hannan's success on 'You Tube'. His Strasbourg speech attacking Gordon Brown has had 2 million hits I am told, and even though most of them may be American his two minutes on his feet has gained him loads of media coverage. Why is it always the europhobes who get the press?

What I wanted to know is how he got called to speak. Only one person per political group got the chance to reply to Brown's speech to the Parliament, mostly the leaders with Graham Watson speaking for the ALDE (Lib Dem) Group.

Apparently Hannan's position is that he is a Conservative MEP but has been thrown out of the EPP group in advance of the formal departure by all the other Tories. For administrative purposes he sits in the Non-Aligned Group of misfits and leftovers. Because it has no coherence it doesn't have the same rights as other groups to table amendments or resolutions in its name, but by way of compensation its members are awarded proportionally a bit more speaking time than others. It would be usual for a British member to be allowed to take on a British Prime Minister.

Lucky sod!