Daniel Hannan

Joseph Daul, EPP leader: Whatever the question, the answer is More Europe

The following invitation has just been sent out by our former partners in the palaeo-federalist EPP. I hope they enjoy themselves; but perhaps, reading it, you will understand why the British Conservatives couldn’t remain in their group. As we Old Brussels Hands say, je vous souhaite une excellente soirée mes amies.

Joseph DAUL, Chairman of the Group of the European People’s Party in the European Parliament, has the great pleasure to invite you for the next EPP GROUP’S EUROPEAN EVENING.

The event will take place on Tuesday 8 February 2011 from 19.30 to 23.00 hrs at the Galeries Royales Saint-Hubert in Brussels.

The programme for the evening placed under the tagline ‘More Europe is the Answer’ is a… Read More

François Fillon: our problem should be your problem

The French Prime Minister has a predictable solution to the euro fiasco.
In order to consolidate the euro we need to harmonise our economic, fiscal and social policies, hence we are going toward greater integration. We need to put in place an economic system of governance for the euro-zone. Great Britain is not part of the euro-zone; but the decision we take will have great importance for Great Britain
The full interview, headlined “Britain must help us save the euro”, is secured behind the fastness of the Times paywall.

Let’s leave aside François Fillon’s attempts to drag Britain into someone else’s troubles, and instead focus on his main contention. Can you spot the flaw in his logic? European integration is failing, so we need more European integration!… Read More

Beijing wants these weapons for a reason

The EU, reports The Times, is preparing to sell arms to China. Baroness Ashton is said to be is looking for a way to lift the embargo imposed after the Tiananmen massacres in 1989.

David Cameron is furious, and you can see why. China wants to build up its weaponry for a reason. Almost every contiguous state has, at one time or another, been touched by its aggrandisement: Korea, Russia, Mongolia, India, Tibet, Vietnam, Hong Kong, Japan. Beijing, as everyone understands, now wants additional matériel in order to browbeat Taiwan, which it regards as a renegade province.

What the devil is Brussels doing fuelling the revanchism of a Communist tyranny? Taiwan has made real and strenuous efforts to embrace parliamentary democracy, yet has been shunned for its efforts. Red China,… Read More

The following article appears in the current edition of the Irish Post (not available online):

The House of Commons was brimming with sympathy for Ireland last month. When the Loans for Ireland Bill was put before them, MPs on both sides of the aisle elbowed each other aside to proclaim their enthusiasm. Ireland was a special case, they said: an old friend, a near neighbour, a vital trading partner. There wasn’t a street in any British town without Irish family connections. If a loan was asked for, a loan must be made available.

It fell to Mark Reckless, the Conservative MP for Rochester – and, as it happens, the grandson of a Fianna Fáil TD – to point out that the loan had not been asked for. All the Irish parties tried to resist the bail-out package. Faced with their reluctance, a number of euro-zone finance ministers had systematically talked… Read More

Campaigning for a referendum during the last parliament

Several readers wonder why I haven’t had anything to say about the Sovereignty Bill, on which MPs will vote tonight. The sorry truth is that I see the whole business as irrelevant.

Why have an abstract debate on whether there might be a referendum on future EU treaties, when we could simply declare that there will be a referendum on the treaty which we know to be coming?

It seems unreal to promise votes on future transfers of power from Westminster to Brussels when we have already made four substantial such transfers since the general election, all without consulting the electorate: the creation of the European External Action Service; the establishment of four new EU supervisory agencies to control the City of London; a… Read More

"I liked it? She was nine years old!"

The immediate aftermath of a tragedy is the worst possible moment to draw broad policy conclusions, let alone to toss blame about. Sadly, the modern technological environment militates against patience. Bloggers and Tweeters rush to make judgments, to infer lessons, to discuss ramifications. On both sides of the Atlantic, the horrible shooting of Gabrielle Giffords, and the killing of six bystanders, have been laid at the door of the Right in general, and the Tea Party in particular.

In its front page story, The Independent described the abomination as “an event that seemed to grow out of America’s present disturbed and angry climate, like a killer-tornado or hurricane: awful, yes, but part of the weather, and, in some sense, only to be expected”… Read More

Where are my Switzers? Let them guard the door!

I wish our MPs would spend more time on holiday. Shorter legislative sessions would mean fewer regulations, smaller government and – other things being equal – greater prosperity.

Some newspapers have evidently reached the view that anything an MP does is, by definition, wrong. There are periodic complaints about our representatives going on holiday during the, you know, holidays. There was supposed to be something improper about George Osborne skiing in Klosters; now the News of the World has joined the attack, complaining about British MPs joining their Swiss colleagues for a week in neighbouring Davos.

Surely we should be delighted that MPs are pursuing a healthy, individualistic and character-building sport at their own expense. And we should be especially pleased that they are doing so in the company of legislators from the freest, most prosperous and most democratic country in Europe.

There… Read More

Best wishes to all my readers in 2011 - even Fabian

Having kept up a daily service over Christmas, this blog is now taking a brief recess. Full service will resume on 10 January.

Happy New Year, and thanks to all my readers – including those who post acerbic comments. If the angry Lefties among you are looking for something to lay into while I’m away, have another go at one of these:

Invictus: a truly terrifying poem

Privatise the elephant!

Thoughts from Yad Vashem

The Hobbit: A Book for Adults

The Tyranny of International Jurisdiction

Sentimental portraiture and the wisdom of crowds

Michael Foot: The last Leveller

Dunkirk Spirit

A truly great Hannan

A patriot doesn’t… Read More

Macmillan had the fault of all arrivistes: that of having too high an opinion of the class into which he had risen

Harold Macmillan is the sort of Tory Lefties often admire: patrician in style, socialist in outlook. When he entered Downing Street in 1957, it was already becoming clear that the dirigisme of the Attlee settlement was causing Britain to fall further and further behind its competitors. Macmillan saw the problem, but lacked the moral courage to tackle it. Unwilling to risk a short-term rise in unemployment, he allowed the country to slide further into subsidy, inflation, torpor and debt – which, of course, made the eventual rise in unemployment more severe when it came.

Small wonder that,… Read More

It’s the time of year when newspapers publish documents released under the Thirty Year Rule, and we all chuckle about the way we used to live. Today’s Guardian carries an absolute gem: a harangue from a trade union dinosaur who believed that “direct action” and “street mobilisations” had more legitimacy than bourgeois democracy. With a fine disregard for our national viability, he insisted that all proposed spending reductions, whatever their individual merits, be resisted:
I have consistently said not a single penny needs to be cut and not a single job should be lost. The cuts are not economically necessary; they are a political choice.
Oh, hang on. My mistake. It’s not a 30-year-old document, but an article by the current General Secretary of the Public and Commercial Services Union, Mark Serwotka.

It’s reasonable enough for trade unions to campaign against specific cuts that affect their members. But surely they can see… Read More