World News Review Breaking news from around the world.

If the Conservative Party in the United Kingdom wants a true boost over the limping Gordon Brown, they may have just found their man.

Daniel Hannan, a British member of the European Parliament, went off on Brown yesterday in a fiery economic speech that has become the sort of viral video sensation that Conservative Party leader David Cameron could only dream of. Telling Brown “you have run out of our money,” and saying he was “pathologically unable to accept responsibility,” Hannan notes the sorry state of Britain’s economy as he assails Brown’s plan to spend Britain’s way out of recession.

Hannan writes about the video’s booming popularity on his Telegraph blog:

“The internet has changed politics - changed it utterly and forever. Twenty-four hours ago, I made a three-minute speech in the European Parliament, aimed at Gordon Brown. I tipped off the BBC and some of the newspaper correspondents but, unsurprisingly, they ignored me: I am, after all, simply a backbench MEP.


…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.


…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.”