Dan Hannan writes…
“.. the energy crisis is not some unforeseeable consequence of the Ukrainian war. It is the result of years of wishful thinking, preening and short-termism. We sit on 300 years’ supply of coal. We have rich pockets of gas trapped in rocks beneath Central Scotland, Yorkshire, Lancashire and Sussex. We have as good a claim as any country to have invented civil nuclear power. Yet, incredibly, we face blackouts and energy rationing.”
The reaction to Monday night’s Channel 4 announcement began yesterday as pearl-clutching before quickly descending into accusations of fascism on the part of the government. A key tenet of fascism being media independence from the state…
One immediate reaction from metropolitan luvvies is that the outrage is partly because Channel 4 is a unique broadcaster that focuses on avant-garde social issues – “C4 has been the lifeblood of UK diversity” as Adil Ray said – and privatising it will prevent such programmes for Britain’s underrepresented minority groups from being made.
Every channel turned down It’s A Sin. Every channel except Channel 4. A privatised Channel 4 would also have turned it down. It costs the taxpayer nothing and yet is owned by the public.
— ΞÐШΛЯÐ (@edwardrussell) April 4, 2022
Thankfully, Dan Hannan was on hand in the Lords to fact check this three-decade old misty-eyed view of the channel. By reading out that particular day’s programming schedule:
“My Lords, ever since the announcement was made, we have been hearing about all these rare cultural gems which are made possible by the unique way in which Channel 4 is financed and which somehow would not be possible in a red in tooth and claw jungle capitalism. So I have just been looking at what the programming is now. With permission, I will tell your Lordships’ House: “Kitchen Nightmares”, “Undercover Boss”, “Steph’s Packed Lunch”, “Countdown”, “A Place in the Sun”, “A New Life in the Sun” and “Sun, Sea and Selling Houses”. Is it really credible to say that we are defending something which could not be provided by the private sector?”
Lord Parkinson diplomatically swerved Hannan’s pejorative listings review, partly responding in Latin to suggest the minister may not be too familiar with Channel 4’s offerings. If anyone’s interested, today you can look forward to three episodes of Frasier, the exact same cooking and undercover boss programmes as yesterday, Countdown, three hours of people buying homes abroad, the Simpsons, Hollyoaks and Naked Attraction at 10pm. Netflix could only dream of such a line-up…
According to polling of Tory voters in Red Wall seats done for the Initiative for Free Trade (IFT), when given a list of potential trade partners, Australia was ranked as the second highest priority – after the United States – for a free trade deal. The most popular arguments backed in favour of an Australia-UK trade agreement were that it will:
IFT President Dan Hannan says:
“This poll should grab the attention of anyone interested in the political economy of the UK, and particularly the future of the Conservative Party. Boris Johnson has begun repainting the Red Wall – this survey suggests that for those very same voters, a trade deal with Australia is a top priority.”
Dan’s identified the deciding issue: does Boris want to back the consumers of his new voting bloc, or the farming lobby’s vested interests of his old voting bloc?
Baron Hannan of Kingsclere in the County of Hampshire…
This year’s Christmas peerages have been announced, including four former MEPs, four former MPs, and the former Archbishop of York. There are 16 new lords a leaping this Christmas…
Former Tory co-treasurer and donor Peter Cruddas finally makes the list, after Boris personally forced his appointment through, along with former MEPs Daniel Hannan, Syed Kamall, and Dame Jacqueline Foster.
On the Labour side, Jenny Chapman, who lost her Darlington seat in the 2019 election and went on to run Keir Starmer’s leadership campaign, is amongst the nominations, as is veteran former MP Vernon Coaker, and Board of Deputies of British Jews Chief Executive Gillian Merron.
See the list in full:
A finalised list of Conservative Party chairmen and vice-chairs sees former MEP and Board of Trade member Dan Hannan appointed as the party’s new “international ambassador”. A new “Vice Chairman for Thinktank relations” role has also been created and given to the recently-appointed policy board chief Neil O’Brien. An interesting choice given O’Brien spent the morning oddly trawling back through old Tweets of the IEA’s Christopher Snowdon on the likelihood of a vaccine, seemingly to gloat…
While many of the positions had been public before, as detailed in his list of PPSs and Vice-Chairs, the new official list seen by Guido finally gives official job titles to the roles:
Tory donors can breathe a sigh of relief over the long list though – the roles’ generation pay packets were recently abolished…
