Daniel Hannan mugs Brown in Strasbourg

The Conservatives have a new hero today - Daniel Hannan, the maverick MEP and regular contributor to The First Post on the shenanigans of Brussels, who stood up before Gordon Brown in the EU Parliament yesterday and gave the visiting PM a mugging he will never forget.

"Prime Minister, I see you've already mastered the essential craft of the European politician," Hannan began, following Brown's address to the Strasbourg parliament, "namely the ability to say one thing in this chamber and a very different thing to your home electorate."

His colleagues in the EU have become used to his Eurosceptic line ever since he joined them ten years ago at 27 (he was the youngest MEP ever) as Conservative member for South East England. But even they were impressed by what followed as Hannan reduced the chamber to silence and Brown to an uncomfortable smirk with a coruscating attack on the PM's economic policies.

The truth, said Hannan, is that Brown has run out of money. "The country as a whole is now in negative equity. Every British child is born owing around £20,000. Servicing the interest on that debt is going to cost more than educating the child."

After accusing Brown of spreading the blame, the 37-year-old MEP told the
PM: "It's not that you're not apologising; like everyone else I have long accepted that you're pathologically incapable of accepting responsibility for these things. It's that you're carrying on, wilfully worsening our situation, wantonly spending what little we have left."

He sat down to an ovation with his final line: "They [the British voters] can see what the markets have already seen: that you are the devalued Prime Minister of a devalued government."

The speech went viral last night and conservatives worldwide have picked up on it. As one Canadian blogger wrote: "I don't really know anything about Daniel Hannan, but this is three and a half minutes of awesome."

When The First Post reached Hannan today he seemed perplexed - though delighted - by the enthusiastic response. "I've made a similar speech about once a week for the past year," he said, "but nobody noticed!" ·