Daniel Hannan says that the EU is hypocritical on climate change

Daniel Hannan - MEP for South East England - has spoken out on EU hypocrisy over climate change.

Mr Hannan is to be highly commended for managing to combine doggedness with elegance - it is easy for people who are sound on Europe to be frightful bores (and boors). It is well worth watching his short speech in full.

Tom Greeves

Daniel Hannan says EU human rights agenda is crowding out democracy

Daniel Hannan, a Conservative MEP for the South East, made a splendid speech yesterday about how the growth of "EU human rights" is crowding out democracy.

The European Parliament has passed a resolution on human rights, which Mr Hannan describes as:

"a litany of nagging demands about abortion law, same-sex unions, the status of asylum seekers and so on.

Now I'm pretty soggy on some of these issues ... But that's not the point. I have no right to impose my views on the electorates of, say, Ireland or Poland. They have their own legislators, whom they can hire and fire."

Mr Hannan's 45 second speech is well worth watching. In an exceptionally elegant speech, perhaps the best line is as follows:

"There is no crisis of human rights in the European Union. But there is a crisis of democratic legitimacy."

Did Dan Hannan make history today?

Conservative MEP Daniel Hannan has just posted on his Telegraph blog:

"I don't know whether this is a first, but I'm blogging from the chamber of the European Parliament. Addressing the session is - I promise I'm not making this up - the "UN High Representative for the Alliance of Civilisations", a former Portuguese president."

We're also wondering if this is a first - does anyone claim to have beaten him to it?

The author often blogs from a bus between Oxford and London. What weird or wonderful places have you blogged from? Have any MPs or peers blogged from the chambers in the Houses of Parliament?

Incidentally, Mr Hannan ends his post with these acid (but persuasive) words:

'The world might plunge into a new depression. The rest of us might end up huddling under bridges and queuing outside soup kitchens. But, whatever happens, the EU, the UN and the other international bureaucracies will expand their budgets, comfortable posts will be found for retired politicians, and Youth Solidarity Funds will disburse their largesse. That is what governments mean when they talk of "protecting front-line services".'