GIVING GORDON BROWN a much-deserved hard time.

UPDATE: At his blog, some thoughts from Daniel Hannan on bypassing the media filter:

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.

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.

Read the whole thing. (Via Randy Barnett, who notes: “FWIW Hannan initially favored Obama over McCain in January ’08 before becoming undecided in September.” I note, however, that Hannan is willing to give Obama more time before turning against him, despite the seeming similarity between Brown’s economic policies and Obama’s.)