Eric Pickles announced a Conservative campaign T-shirt competition on the Blue Blog at the end of August. CCHQ staffers have whittled the entries down and a selection are now open for a public vote. Shockingly, the creation below from The W*nk Rag did not make it through to the final shortlist:
In other Hannan related developments, our favourite MEP is a panelist at the Conservative conference ‘Twinge‘ (Twitter fringe) event.
He should practice squeezing gaffes into 140 characters.
When David Cameron promoted Daniel Hannan as the party’s law spokesperson in the European Parliament he must have hoped it would bring an end to damaging gaffes about abolishing the NHS and how great Enoch Powell is. But apparently not.
“Barack Obama has an exotic background, and it would be odd if some people weren’t unsettled by it.” – Daniel Hannan
He continues on his blog:
During the campaign, he made a virtue of his unusual upbringing. He was at once from the middle of the country (Kansas) and from its remotest edge (Hawaii). He was both black and white. He was a Protestant brought up among Muslims. He seemed to have family on every continent. Like St Paul, he made a virtue of being all things to all men. On one level, the strategy worked brilliantly. But it could hardly fail to leave a chunk of people feeling that Obama wasn’t exactly a regular guy.
Hannan isn’t thick. He is well aware that the parties, journalists and the blogosphere are watching him like a hawk and the reaction that praising Enoch Powell will receive. There must be a genuine fear within CCHQ that – sooner or later – Hannan may do something that will really damage the ‘detoxified’ Conservative brand.
Here’s hoping for a well-timed general election gaffe!
Hat tip: LabourList
“Be careful what you wish for, Hannan! You wanted your new group, and look at you now! Ha!” – a German MEP
Quick, let’s jump into bed with some crazies!
For those who have been living in a cave at the bottom of the Irish Sea with earmuffs on for the last two months, Tory MEP Daniel Hannan has been touring American TV studios with a misinformation campaign about the British health system. The lies start with NHS waiting lists:
“The most striking thing about it is that very often you are sent to the back of the queue. You turn up with an ailment and you’re told ‘okay, how about October of next year?’” – Daniel Hannan
Those not living in a timewarp – it’s 2009 no 1989 – know that this is a scaremongering bunch of crap. In fact, waiting times at the NHS Queen’s Hospital in Burton have fallen so much that some patients are saying their operations are being scheduled too quickly:
“Incredibly enough, some patients now say it’s too quick and want time to think and plan. People still believe that if they need something like a hip operation, it’s going to be months.” Figures show Queen’s saw 94.6 per cent of admitted patients within the 18-week referral to treatment time, well over the 90 per cent target.
Here it comes:
“The funding that the NHS has had over the last few years has made it possible because we’ve been able to expand our capacity and see patients more quickly.” – Paula Clark, chief executive, Queen’s Hospital, Burton
Perhaps someone should tell Sean Hannity and Glenn Beck?
After attacks on the NHS and other gaffes which saw CCHQ scrambling to defend their de-toxified brand the Tories have now promoted Daniel Hannan to their European front bench as spokesman for legal affairs. Andy Burnham is leading the charge:
“Will the real David Cameron please stand up?”
He goes on:
David Cameron is happy to deride Tory MEP Daniel Hannan in front of the cameras and claim that his views are not the true face of the Tory Party. But privately Cameron rewards Hannan for his attacks on the NHS with a plum job on his frontbench in the European Parliament.
This presumably puts an end to his little holidays pandering to Fox News, Rush Limbaugh and the rest of the American right wing media.
Have the Cameroons moved to gag Hannan with a new job?
During an interview with an online outfit of the libertarian Reason Foundation, Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan has cited Enoch “rivers of blood” Powell as a primary political influence.
Hannan wasn’t referring to immigration but to cite Powell without qualification in this way, in the words of Paul Waugh, may “cause a few twitches in CCHQ”.
Give this man a keynote speech at Tory conference!
Despite Tim Montgomerie’s protestations to the contrary, Scrapbook reckons firefighting comments made by a loose-cannon MEP is not Conservative Central Office’s preferred summer activity:
This story has been leading the news for well over 24 hours.
Daniel Hannan, we salute you!
Heeere's Danny! Loose cannon Daniel Hannan should give Tory spinners sleepless nights
Remember Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan‘s attacks on the NHS? Where he said that British doctors “make people iller”? Here’s a reminder :
Well it turns out the Tories’ loose-cannon-at-large has been at it again! In remarks made in a speech at the Army and Navy Club in Washington DC Hannan has said: “It is exactly a Marxist system. You are treated as a supplicant and expected to be grateful for what you get [...] It is not uncommon to wait six, 10, even 12 months for a knee operation”.
Hang on a minute. Year long waiting lists? That is, like, so nineties! Thankfully Grace Fletcher-Hackwood* pulls this to bits so Scrapbook doesn’t have to:
He’s also, of course, lying [...] let’s have a look at the figures, shall we: ‘The number of patients, for whom English commissioners are responsible, waiting over the 26 weeks standard at the end of June 2009 was 23′ - NHS inpatient and outpatient waiting times figures, 30 June 2009. That’s twenty-three people in England waiting more than six months for treatment. Twenty-three. In the whole of England.
But he isn’t done with his media rounds yet. In an interview with Andrew Napolitano (whose reference to “Chancellor Gordon Brown” betrays his level of interest in affairs outside the 50 states) Hannan insults NHS staff yet again by describing them as a voting “bloc” whose behaviour means “it’s almost impossible to get rid of the [NHS]“:
Fox News nutcase Sean Hannity concludes the first video clip above by saying “Daniel, I hope one day I will get to introduce you as Mister Prime Minister”. In the words of the Honourable Member for Glasgow South:
He’s being talked of as a future candidate of his party. I can think of nothing more likely to turn moderate voters off than his strident, smug, arrogant neo-Thatcherism. So best of luck to him. – Tom Harris
Hannan seems to think no one will notice his attacks on British public services if they’re done stateside.
Perhaps someone should tell him we can get Fox News in the UK?
* Welcome to the blogroll, Gracie.
