Daniel Hannan | The Spectator columnists & writers

A show of ample and eerie majesty: British Museum’s Peru: A Journey in Time reviewed

Growing up on a farm outside Lima, I was aware that indigenous Peruvians did not understand time in the same way that their white countrymen did. On our visits to the highlands, we would encounter a very different mode of thinking. Ask an Andean villager where the next settlement was and you’d be told, ‘aquisito no más’ — just over here. Whether ‘aquisito’ meant around the next bend or four days’ schlep across the mountains was, for aboriginal people, a meaningless question. They were not ruled, as their European-descended neighbours were, by clocks. You’d sometimes see Quechua-speaking herdsmen sitting motionless for so long that they seemed to have switched off and become part of the landscape. Peru: A Journey in Time sounds like one of those generic names chosen by committee.

A decade in crisis

‘I voted to stay in a common market. No one ever mentioned a political union.’ It is the complaint of an entire generation — the generation, by and large, that switched its vote between 1975 and 2016. It is also, as Robert Saunders shows in this eloquent history of the earlier poll, based on a false memory. Anti-Marketeers in 1975, especially Tony Benn and Enoch Powell, constantly talked about ‘our right to rule ourselves’. Supporters of the EEC, for their part, were never happier than when lecturing voters about the benefits of swapping theoretical sovereignty for actual power. But the voters — empirical, practical, Anglo-Saxon — wanted examples. Abstract nouns like ‘sovereignty’ left them cold. What did sovereignty mean? Both sides found that, in order to connect, they had to talk about day-to-day consequences, such as Commonwealth trade and food prices.

Madrid’s violent tactics will only push Catalans towards independence

In October 1936, on the anniversary of Columbus’s discovery of the New World, a ceremony was held at Salamanca University, in the heart of the nationalist Spain, to celebrate the ‘Day of the Race’. The Bishop of Salamanca, who had recently offered up his episcopal palace to be Franco’s headquarters, stood in the great hall next to the founder of the Spanish Foreign Legion, General José Millán Astray, a one-armed and one-eyed thug of a man. Also present was the university rector, Miguel de Unamuno, an eminent Basque philosopher who had supported the nationalist coup when it was launched four months earlier, but had since become disillusioned with its viciousness. One of the speakers, Professor Francisco Maldonado, tore into Basque and Catalan separatism, which he described as tumours in Spain’s body.

Spanish practices

Who’s afraid of a ‘hard’ Brexit?

Pull yourselves together, you wusses. It’s a minor readjustment of our tariff arrangements we’re talking about, not an epidemic or a foreign invasion or an asteroid strike. Not that anyone would guess it from the apocalyptic vocabulary you’re using. 'A hard Brexit,' says Keir Starmer for Labour, 'would be catastrophic for our economy, living standards, jobs and future prosperity'. Tim Farron, the Lib Dem leader, agrees it would be 'economically disastrous'. The CBI calls it 'very negative'. Sound familiar? We became accustomed to such over-the-top language during the referendum campaign. The very act of voting Leave, we were told, would cause an immediate recession. Unemployment would surge and the stock exchange would collapse, destroying the value of our pensions.

Put out more flags

Did you know that 190 out of 200 nations in the world have either red or blue on their flags? (The wheel in the middle of India’s flag is blue, for example, and the Vatican flag has a red cord hanging from the keys.) Did you know that four of those 190 — Andorra, Chad, Moldova and Romania — have pretty much the same blue-yellow-red tricolour? Or that the stripes of the French flag are not of even width, but are proportioned 30-34-37? It’s an optical illusion: if the red, white and blue are of equal breadth, the flag looks curiously unbalanced. These are among the facts that you won’t find in Tim Marshall’s Worth Dying For, a vexillological miscellany. I bring them up in no carping spirit. Rather, I’m trying to demonstrate the difficulty faced by authors of this sort of book in an age of Google.

The six best reasons for Brexit

We’re closing 2016 by republishing our ten most-read articles of the year. Here’s No. 8: Daniel Hannan's piece from June, in which he argues why voting 'Leave' is the right decision For me, as for so many people, it’s a heart versus head issue. I’m emotionally drawn to Europe. I speak French and Spanish and have lived and worked all over the Continent. I’ve made many friends among the Brussels functionaries. Lots of them, naturally, are committed Euro-federalists. Yet they are also decent neighbours, loyal companions and generous hosts. I feel twinges of unease about disappointing them, especially the anglophiles. But, in the end, the head must rule the heart. Remainers often tell us to think of our children, and I’m doing precisely that.

President Islam Karimov: ‘He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch’

Islam Karimov, President of Uzbekistan from 1990 – 2016, died yesterday following a stroke. Here's what Daniel Hannan wrote about him in 2003: A strange little row has been bubbling away over the past two months concerning our ambassador to Tashkent. You may have seen the odd headline about it in the inside pages of the broadsheets but, unless you have a particular interest in diplomatic affairs, I suspect your eye will quickly have skipped on to the next story. Why, after all, should we be especially interested in Uzbekistan? A tremendously important region for Britain during the Great Game, of course, but hardly of vital strategic interest today. Yet the curious recall of Craig Murray ought to interest us for two reasons: first, it tells us a great deal about how the Foreign Office operates; and second, it raises serious questions about our conduct of the war on terror.

Brexit means sovereignty

We know what people voted against,’ say half-clever pundits, ‘but it’s far from clear what they voted for.’ Actually, it’s very clear: the British voted to leave the EU and take back control of their own laws. They didn’t dictate precisely what kind of deal we should have with our neighbours after leaving: that is for ministers to negotiate. But when Leave campaigners invited people to ‘take back control’, voters understood what that meant: legal supremacy should return from Brussels to Westminster. Remainers spent the campaign trying to suggest that the EU was just one among several international associations in which Britain participated. It was, they wanted us to believe, a club, like Nato or the G20, in which we agreed to abide by common rules in order to secure common objectives.

Daniel Hannan: Brexit will be a gentle process

This is the transcript of speech delivered by Daniel Hannan during the Spectator's second Brexit debate. Full coverage of the event can be found here. I heard today what must be reckoned to be the single worst argument that we’ve had from any major figure on either side of this campaign. It came from Ed Balls. What he said is, we should vote to remain in and then reform it. Why has nobody thought of that before, what a good idea! Think of the story of our involvement with the European Union these past four decades. If you have been listening for at least five minutes to politicians of any party, they will all have given you the same line. Yes, I’m in favour of Europe but not this one, we want one that gives more powers back to the national parliament, we want one that is an association of states collaborating in the common interest where we can … Great, fabulous.

The six best reasons to vote Leave

For me, as for so many people, it’s a heart versus head issue. I’m emotionally drawn to Europe. I speak French and Spanish and have lived and worked all over the Continent. I’ve made many friends among the Brussels functionaries. Lots of them, naturally, are committed Euro-federalists. Yet they are also decent neighbours, loyal companions and generous hosts. I feel twinges of unease about disappointing them, especially the anglophiles. But, in the end, the head must rule the heart. Remainers often tell us to think of our children, and I’m doing precisely that. I am thinking, not just about the EU as it is now, but about the diminished role that a surly, introverted Europe will have in their lifetime. And that makes my decision very easy.

Bought off by Brussels

A letter appeared in the Independent a few weeks ago signed by various environmentalist grandees — heads of green lobby groups, former chairmen of eco-quangos and the like. It warned against Brexit on the grounds that EU laws had ‘a hugely positive effect’ on the environment. It didn’t explain why a post-EU Britain wouldn’t retain, replicate or even improve these ‘hugely positive’ laws. As usual, it implied that voters needed to have such things dictated to them. The really interesting thing, though, was the list of bodies that followed the signatories’ names: Natural England, the Green Alliance, the RSPB, the Natural Environment Research Council, a couple of universities — you get the picture. A cursory Google search revealed that, of the 12 organisations listed, eight were getting grants directly from the EU.

What Brexit looks like

‘So what’s your alternative?’ demand Euro-enthusiasts. ‘D’you want Britain to be like Norway? Or like Switzerland? Making cuckoo clocks? Is that what you want? Is it? Eh?’ The alternative to remaining in a structurally unsafe building is, of course, walking out; but I accept that this won’t quite do as an answer. Although staying in the EU is a greater risk than leaving — the migration and euro crises are deepening, and Britain is being dragged into them — change-aversion is deep in our genome, and we vote accordingly. Europhiles know that most referendums go the way of the status quo, which is why their campaign is based around conjuring inchoate fears of change. What is the alternative? Well, all the options involve remaining part of the European free-trade zone that stretches from non-EU Iceland to non-EU Turkey.

David Cameron will secure all of his EU reforms — because they will alter nothing

I have no doubt that David Cameron will secure 100 per cent of his stated aims vis-à-vis the EU. The reason he is stating them in public is that the other members have already agreed to them in private. They have done so cheerfully, incredulous at how little is being asked. The other heads of government know, as the PM knows, that his four 'reforms' will alter nothing. Think about it. 1. Opting out of the words 'ever closer union' Just the words. Not the fact of ever closer union. The real way to opt out would be to end the automatic supremacy of EU over British law. As long as European Commissioners and judges, who loudly proclaim that deeper integration is their supreme goal, can over-ride UK statues, nothing will change.

Gove vs the Euro-judges

[audioplayer src="http://rss.acast.com/viewfrom22/michaelgovesfightforjustice/media.mp3" title="Daniel Hannan and Greg Callus discuss the battles ahead for Michael Gove" startat=42] Listen [/audioplayer]They have taken to calling themselves the ‘Runnymede Tories’: those Conservative MPs who, knowing that David Cameron has a majority of just 12, want to sabotage his manifesto commitment to end the direct jurisdiction of the European Court of Human Rights in Britain. Well, sorry chaps, but that name is taken. The actual Runnymede Tories — that is, the Conservatives elected to Runnymede Borough Council — will be gathering next month on the bank of the Thames to celebrate the anniversary of Magna Carta. They — we, I should say, since I’m closely involved with the project — will be unveiling a large bronze statue of the Queen, symbolising both 800 years of the Crown’s acceptance of the rule of law and the fact that the principles of Magna Carta have been disseminated, during the present monarch’s reign, across many continents and archipelagos.

The same old song

T.S. Eliot liked to recall the time he was recognised by his London taxi driver. Surprised, he told the cabbie that poets weren’t often recognised. ‘I’ve an eye for celebrities,’ the driver replied. ‘I ’ad that Lord Russell in the back o’ the cab the other day. I said to ’im, “All right, then, Bertrand, so wossit all about?” And, you know what, ’e couldn’t tell me.’ I’ve always felt the story reflects well on the cabbie. While it may have been asking too much of Bertrand Russell to condense his philosophy into the length of a taxi journey, he surely ought to have been able to say something useful. George Steiner is a public intellectual almost of Russell’s stature. Born in Paris to Viennese Jewish parents, he was taken to New York as a child in 1940, a month before the fall of France.

All you’ll ever need to know about the history of England in one volume

Here is a stupendous achievement: a narrative history of England which is both thorough and arresting. Very few writers could pull it off. Either they’d have an axe to grind, or they’d lose perspective, or they’d present a series of anecdotes, or they’d end up in a Casaubonish pursuit of other historians’ errors. In fact, to get it right, you’d ideally be a mature and accomplished author, steeped in the facts, who was nonetheless tackling English history for the first time. Which is more or less what Robert Tombs, a professor of French history at Cambridge, is. ‘A writer of history ought, in his writings, to be a foreigner, without country, living under his own law only,’ claimed Thomas Hobbes, adapting Lucian.

How Cameron could make the EU a winning issue (and why he won’t)

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_23_Oct_2014_v4.mp3" title="James Forsyth, Mats Persson and Matthew Elliott discuss Europe" startat=60] Listen [/audioplayer]Imagine if David Cameron actually meant it. Imagine if he really did follow through with his implied threat to campaign for Brexit in the absence of better terms from Brussels. You can picture the televised address. An oak-panelled background with a large union flag hanging sedately in the corner, the PM with that furrowed house-captain expression he sometimes does. The script pretty much writes itself. ‘All of you know how hard I tried to secure a new deal. I was often criticised for being too conciliatory, but it was my duty to do whatever was in my power to reform the EU.

Cameron could win in 2015 if he took EU withdrawal seriously … but he won’t

Imagine if David Cameron actually meant it. Imagine if he really did follow through with his implied threat to campaign for Brexit in the absence of better terms from Brussels. You can picture the televised address. An oak-panelled background with a large union flag hanging sedately in the corner, the PM with that furrowed house-captain expression he sometimes does. The script pretty much writes itself. ‘All of you know how hard I tried to secure a new deal. I was often criticised for being too conciliatory, but it was my duty to do whatever was in my power to reform the EU. I have to tell you today that the Brussels institutions are not interested in — are perhaps not capable of — the reforms that I believe the British people want.

Europe rose up in protest against the EU — here’s your guide to the new rebels

Daniel Hannan wrote in the Spectator earlier this year about the pirate parties of Europe I once shared a car to the airport with a French MEP, a member of the Front National (FN). He spoke that very correct French which, across the Channel, serves in place of accent as a social signifier. He casually mentioned that the Holocaust couldn’t have happened, at least not on the scale claimed: the volume of the ovens, he creepily explained, was insufficient. The European Parliament has always had its fair share of extremists, eccentrics and outright, drooling loons. With the FN then polling at 6 per cent, there seemed no need to treat any of its MEPs seriously, so I took to avoiding that one. Now his party is set to win tonight's European election.

Shakespeare invented Britain. Now he can save it

[audioplayer src="http://traffic.libsyn.com/spectator/TheViewFrom22_10_April_2014_v4.mp3" title="Fraser Nelson and Angus Robertson debate the shared values of the English and Scots" startat=32] Listen [/audioplayer]‘What country, friends, is this?’ We’ve been wrestling with Viola’s question almost from the moment she asked it. It was barely a year after Shakespeare had scribbled out those words, in the first Act of Twelfth Night, that James VI of Scotland inherited England’s throne, beginning a 400-year confusion over national identity that has led to the present referendum on partition. The new monarch wanted to amalgamate his two realms. In his first address to the House of Commons, James asked — in his noticeably Scottish accent — ‘Hath not God first united these kingdoms, both in language and religion and similitude of manners? Hath He not made us all in one island, compassed by one sea?’ The border, the king declared, had always been artificial, and had now disappeared.

Watch out Eurocrats, here come the Pirates!

I once shared a car to the airport with a French MEP, a member of the Front National (FN). He spoke that very correct French which, across the Channel, serves in place of accent as a social signifier. He casually mentioned that the Holocaust couldn’t have happened, at least not on the scale claimed: the volume of the ovens, he creepily explained, was insufficient. The European Parliament has always had its fair share of extremists, eccentrics and outright, drooling loons. With the FN then polling at 6 per cent, there seemed no need to treat any of its MEPs seriously, so I took to avoiding that one. Now his party is set to win the next European election. But it’s not just madmen on the rise. In country after country, genuine protest movements of left, right and centre are surging.

How Britain invented freedom - and why we need to save it now

The single most common reaction I get from Americans when they learn that we’re placing our newspapers under our politicians is: ‘Y’all need a Bill of Rights’. You can see their point. Absolute freedom of expression used to distinguish the English-speaking peoples from the run of nations. The restrictions which even other western democracies applied — prohibitions on Nazi symbols, for example — were inconceivable in the Anglosphere. Over the past quarter of a century, that has changed. Anglophone democracies now regularly prosecute people for saying the wrong thing, usually on grounds of putative insult to some minority group. We have become accustomed, in Britain, to people being arrested for handing out Bible verses that might upset gay people, or for saying things that are presumed to offend Muslims.

The pain in Spain

Spain was always going to be where the doom of the euro would be determined. Ireland, Portugal, Greece and Cyprus amount, together, to less than 5 per cent of the EU’s economy. They can be rescued without emptying the bailout fund. Alternatively, their defaults can be managed as controlled explosions. Spain is in a different category. Europe’s banks are massively exposed there: an explosion could blast the continent’s financial system to splinters. On the other hand, the sheer scale of a rescue package might finally exhaust the patience of the northern European taxpayers. Spain’s agonies were caused directly by the euro. We can’t, as we can in Greece, blame irresponsible local politicians or poor tax collection.

Allergic to freedom

To what problem is the statutory regulation of herbalists a solution? Are the tiny bits of bark and sap and leaf peddled by contemporary wisewomen deleterious to human health? Are we at risk of being sterilised by St John’s wort, paralysed by pau d’arco, maddened by meadowsweet? Hardly. Herbal remedies might be inert placebos or they might, as my wife maintains, be better for you than antibiotics. My wife is often right; and in any case, as the author of Proverbs tells us, ‘better a dinner of herbs where love is than a stalled ox and hatred therewith’ (rarely could the bit about the herbs have applied so aptly).In a sense, though, it doesn’t matter whether complementary medicine lives up to its billing. This isn’t about science; it’s about freedom.

Politics: The right way to help Ireland

Why is Britain committing £7 billion to a bailout which will trap Ireland in its present discontents?Would you trust an economic forecaster who had recently said this?The euro has done more to enforce budgetary discipline in the rest of Europe than any number of exhortations from the IMF or the OECD. If we remain outside the euro, we will simply continue to subside into a position of relative poverty and inefficiency compared to our more prosperous European neighbours. Or this:The euro has already provided great internal stability to the eurozone.Or this: If we get rid of sterling and adopt the euro, we will also get rid of sterling crises and sterling overvaluations. This will give us a real control over our economic environment.

Budget 2009: Darling is interested in headlines, not economic recovery

The figures have now become literally unimaginable. Britain will borrow £175 billion this year, £173 billion the year after—a higher total in two years than in the entirety of the 316 years since King William introduced the national debt. It’s hardly surprising, in the circumstances, that people snatch at the more comprehensible numbers, notably the hikes in higher rate tax. It’s a classic piece of Brownite prestigiditation. Higher levies on those earning more than £100,000 or £150,000 a year will generate little revenue. Indeed, they will probably cost more to administer fthan they raise: wealthy people, in order to avoid the new rate of income tax, will also start avoiding capital gains tax, inheritance tax and other imposts which, at present, they don’t always bother to skive, and capital will be driven overseas.

Brussels Notebook

It’s dawning on me that the Prime Minister can’t listen to criticism.It’s dawning on me that the Prime Minister can’t listen to criticism. I don’t just mean that he can’t respond to criticism; I mean that he literally can’t listen to it. When he came to the European Parliament to drum up support for his spending plans, I made a three-minute speech in favour of balanced budgets. As I talked, he pulled his face into what I think was meant to be a disdainful smirk, then ostentatiously chatted to his officials, then pretended to doodle on a piece of paper. I’ve never doubted Gordon Brown’s convictions: he seems genuinely actuated by a desire to help the poor. But, like many people who are satisfied about the purity of their own motives, he refuses to countenance dissent.

The real lesson of this fiasco is that we need elected police chiefs

Perhaps now you’ll understand what we’ve been banging on about, we localists. For the better part of a decade, we’ve campaigned to place the police under elected sheriffs. Some of our chief constables, we contended, had cast off the cables that once attached them to public opinion. They were concentrating on speed cameras and hate crimes and community relations when the rest of us wanted them to concentrate on being unpleasant to scoundrels. The best way to align the police’s priorities with everyone else’s, we argued, was to place our constabularies under locally elected representatives.You disagreed — you, Spectator readers in particular. Our ideas, you felt, were downright un-British. They might do for people in hot countries whose leaders wore sunglasses, but one of the glories of Britain’s constitution was the independence of its public servants.

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