Iain linked yesterday to that splendid rebuke of British prime minister Gordon Brown by Daniel Hannan, MEP, a brutal evisceration that has now gone well and truly viral. Mr. Hannan himself is rather endearingly pleased by the response:

When I woke up this morning, my phone was clogged with texts, my email inbox with messages. Overnight, the YouTube clip of my remarks had attracted over 36,000 hits. By today, it was the most watched video in Britain. How did it happen, in the absence of any media coverage? The answer is that political reporters no longer get to decide what’s news. The days when a minister gave briefings to a dozen lobby correspondents, and thereby dictated the next day’s headlines, are over. Now, a thousand bloggers decide for themselves what is interesting. If enough of them are tickled then, bingo, you’re news…
…Breaking the press monopoly is one thing. But the internet has also broken the political monopoly. Ten or even five years ago, when the Minister for Widgets put out a press release, the mere fact of his position guaranteed a measure of coverage. Nowadays, a politician must compel attention by virtue of what he is saying, not his position.

That’s a little pollyannish. Nevertheless the U.K. may well be about finally to discover, for good and ill, just how much the internet can transform the political debate.

Meanwhile, in a spectacular display of sour grapes, Labour MP Tom Harris vents:

What was truly repugnant about his speech was the total absence of any sense of patriotism. Some Tories on the extreme right of the party share the problem of some Republicans in the States: they don’t regard the head of government to be the nation’s leader unless he or she is also a member of their little party. Gordon Brown isn’t just Labour’s prime minister; he’s Britain’s prime minister, and for any UK politician to launch such a disgraceful, personal attack on his country’s leader — in a foreign country — is nothing short of disgraceful.

Quite rightly, Alex Massie will have nothing of it:

I don’t regard Gordon Brown to be the nation’s leader and I don’t think you should either. Similarly, Tony Blair was never the “nation’s leader” and nor was John Major. That job has been filled, very effectively, by Queen Elizabeth for some time now. Harris’s attempt to create a convention whereby it’s considered poor form to be rude about the Prime Minister – a mere MP for crying out loud – when we’re overseas is terrible guff. Pompous guff at that. By contrast the American President is head of state so there is at least some greater reason for the convention that applies in their politics.