Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive, But to be Dan was very heaven! O wondrous day. One of which dreams are made. Especially if you’ve been taking large quantities of hallucinogenics. The day forever named Daniel Hannan Day. We will never see his like again. With any luck. The Man with a brain the size of a Higgs Boson particle. You know it must be there somewhere but only the Large Hadron Collider can conjure it into existence for a nanosecond.
Yet in that fleeting moment, Dan can achieve great things. Can share the marvels he has seen. For Dan’s unique ability is to be wrong about almost everything, all the time. Failing is his niche talent and his fans applaud his every disaster. Triumph and recognition are his alone. For Dan has long since been rewarded for being the dimmest man alive with a peerage. Living proof that even halfwits and liabilities need not be excluded from the upper chamber. And where Dan leads, Toby Young and others follow.
To recap. Back in 2016, Dan was a Tory MEP. A confirmed Eurosceptic and bewilderingly considered by many to be the intellectual backbone of the Vote Leave campaign. Gravitas borne out of unbearable levitas. And two days before the referendum, Dan decided to share his genius for prophesy in an article he wrote for the Reaction.life website. This was the chronicle of Dan’s idiocy foretold.
“It’s 24 June, 2025, and Britain is marking its annual Independence Day celebration,” wrote Dan. “As the fireworks stream through the summer sky, still not quite dark, we wonder why it took us so long to leave. The years that followed the 2016 referendum didn’t just reinvigorate our economy, our democracy and our liberty. They improved relations with our neighbours.”
Today we have reached that day. It is indeed 24 June 2025. And weirdly, Dan does not seem at all keen to be reminded of his morphine dreams from nine years ago. Surely this should be a day of celebration for him? Where is the column in the Daily Telegraph in which he once more shares his genius? Where is the pullout guide in the Daily Mail to all the street and firework parties taking place around the country? All hail the majesty of Dan Hannan Day.
But it’s really not fair that Dan should be so cruelly overlooked by his erstwhile backers on today of all days. Why all the long faces? Why do heads turn away when Dan’s name is mentioned? Are we no longer allowed to enjoy the triumph of Brexit and the people who delivered such treasures to Britain? Whatever happened to punching the air at a self-inflicted 4% hit to GDP? It’s almost as if the leavers are ashamed of what they have done.
Back to the gospel according to St Dan. How else did he imagine the Britain of today? Agriculture and fishing booming. Cows with smiling faces, safe in the knowledge they would never hear moos with a French accent. Millions of cod swimming back into British coastal waters, desperate to be turned into fish fingers by Captain Birds Eye.
It got better. Not only was the UK the foremost knowledge-based economy in the world, but Hoxton had superseded Silicon Valley as the global centre for tech. Not forgetting more traditional industries. Steel and ceramics would rise from their sick beds and become competitive again. Meanwhile the EU was withering and dying, choking on its own bureaucracy as Jean-Claude Juncker was voted back in for his second term as president of the European Federation.
Imagine writing such trash. It’s bad enough having to go back and read it again. The delusions became ever more tragic and grandiose. Hard not to worry about Dan’s sanity. The trading arrangements with the EU were easily agreed, Dan fantasised. Not least because the EU was so intimidated by our show of strength. Tariff-free borders remained and EU nationals were given leave to remain.
On and on it went. Birmingham and Leeds would become financial capitals of the world as Frankfurt, Milan and Paris stagnated. The UK would become the centre of world shipping. Shale oil and gas would come on tap and energy prices would hit record lows. Universities would flourish as the UK headed a new 22-state bloc to rival the EU. Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands would have already followed our example and left the EU.
You can only wonder what Dan’s predictions for 24 June 2034 might look like. Dear Diary, for nine years the Middle East has been at peace, with Israel and Iran now inseparable allies. Crimea has become Europe’s most fashionable summer resort after President Putin voluntarily handed it back to Ukraine. Meanwhile, the UK has become the largest economy in the world and has threatened to pull out of Nato unless the US increases its defence spending to 8%.
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If only all worlds were like Dan’s. The reality is that, having just been blindsided by Donald Trump’s decision to bomb Iran and the fragile ceasefire already broken, Keir Starmer found himself off to deal with yet another war at the Nato conference. This involved further Donald wrangling. Trying to persuade the US not to give away large chunks of Ukraine to Russia. Good luck with that.
All of which left the chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Pat McFadden, to give a statement on the government’s national security strategy to the Commons. And who better than Pat. The cadaver in human form. The man with the slightly sinister air of someone happy to sign death warrants over breakfast.
The world was a very dangerous place, he began. All the more dangerous for having him in it. It was the government’s policy to reach defence spending of 5% by 2035, with 1.5% coming from already existing internet and energy projects that had originally been assigned to other departments and would now be commandeered by defence. Not that he put it in those terms. But that appeared to be the gist of it.
Everything else was on a need-to-know basis. All Pat could supply were some broad ideas. He would make us safe at home. And abroad. That was it. If he said anymore then our enemies would know what we were doing and the whole purpose of the strategy would be compromised. Thank you and good night. Sweet dreams are made of this on Daniel Hannan Day.