Dan Hannan in the news

You can watch the interview for yourself here but Dan Hannan MEP is under fire again this morning for identifying Enoch Powell as one of his political heroes during an interview with America's reason.tv.

A few quick thoughts:

1. This is not a new interview.  Dan Hannan has not given interviews since the NHS furore because he hasn't wanted to reignite the row.
2. Journalists - egged on by Labour activists who will never forgive Hannan for the devastating attack he made on Brown in the European Parliament - are going through Dan's historical interviews and turning up anything they can find. This Enoch story may not be the last product of these journalistic trawls but I suspect they will have diminishing returns for Labour.
3. Diminishing returns is even overstating things.  The NHS row has had no beneficial effect for Labour.  Two polls in recent days (ICM and ComRes) show the Tory lead solid and Labour less trusted than Conservatives on the NHS.  The row has put a spotlight on David Cameron's own NHS credentials in a way that would not have happened if there had been no controversy.
4. Many readers will agree with what Dan has been saying and many won't.  But I'm with Paul Goodman MP in being glad that we have a much greater toleration in the Conservative Party for internal debate.  It's one of the reasons why we'll be a stronger government.  One of the reasons the Blair project failed was that people were too afraid to criticise (and improve) it.

Tim Montgomerie