“It’s worth pointing out though that the names of Rand and Friedman were never cited by Hannan himself.”

Wrong, he did cite Rand.

Actually, I think Rand was cited directly by Hannan without prompting if my recollection of the video is correct.

Hayek counts as a “great thinker” only if you ignore the fact that the central premise of The Road to Serfdom (that there is a stark choice between a totally laissez-faire paradise and the jackboot of Soviet-style totalitarianism) was refuted by everything that happened in the decades after it was written.

@Andrew, I don’t think that follows: pretty much everything Aristotle wrote was somewhere between wrong and wrong-and-mad, but he was still a great thinker.

Incidentally, from the rest of that leader:

Similarly, while Mr Hannan has got the balance of his judgment on Powell completely wrong, in a mature democracy he should be able to make such a point and have it considered sensibly.

If politicians can’t say what they think, why bother with them?

@5 – And?

He was allowed to say what he thought. We listened and decided it was stupid. I guess it’s the last part that you have a problem with?

Actually much of what Aristotle wrote was right, which is why he’s still relevant. There are various well-known “mad” things he wrote, many of which are apocryphal, and much of his metaphysics is about as good as any metaphysics of the time (i.e. not very good), but his ethical work and a surprising amount of his scientific work still stands up – Anthony Gottlieb’s The Dream of Reason is a very good corrective to the standard view of Aristotle, which is based more on the mediaeval scholastics who revered him than on Aristotle himself.

Hayek, on the other hand, was just plain wrong. Influential, in that Margaret Thatcher followed him slavishly (or at least claimed to – the reality of her government’s commitment to free market economics was rather less straightforward), but still wrong.

6 – alternatively, Sunny decided that ZOMG! Hannan was actually just like Enoch Powell!!11!!

Tim J: Give it up man – Big Danny’s not going to take you to the ball.

If only David Cameron were Daniel Hannan in disguise, I would certainly vote for him.

Imagine: a politician who says what he thinks, even if it will not be popular, even if it will provoke a kneejerk reaction in the press.

I’ve had enough of the media-appeasing Tony Blair style of politician; I think if you peel off Cameron’s mask, that’s all you’ll find.

Frankly, I have more respect for Powell than any of the others on that list… (Which should not be taken as an endorsement of him.) Ayn Rand? There are limits.

Friedman did far more harm, and globally too.

I don’t think that Hayek being wrong about the “stark choice between a totally laissez-faire paradise and the jackboot of Soviet-style totalitarianism” is sufficient to demonstrate that everything Hayek said was wrong or that no insights can be gleaned from Hayek. Any more that Aristotle’s metaphysics being “not very good” but “as good as any metaphysics of the time” says the same for everything else he wrote.

Would you also say that Marx was “just plain wrong” for similar reasons and that there is nothing worthwhile to be found in Marxism?

Here’s an LC contributor who would describe himself (I think, I could be wrong) as a Marxist and a Hayekian.

Irrespective of how ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ you think Hayek may have been in his predictions, he’s an important thinker within Anglo-American political philosophy and economics – the first paragraph of his Wikipedia page will tell you that. Marx turned out to be pretty much ‘wrong’ in his predictions (in so far as you can ever falsify a prediction..), but he’s still one of the most important figures in political philosophy.

Daniel Hannan seems to be carving out a niche for himself as a kind of party outrider, antagonising the leadership on behalf of the grassroots. His admiration for Enoch Powell is the kind of thing that’ll go down well with them – how many people have old uncles who have a “Enoch Powell was right…” spiel that they trot out after a few drinks? The best piece i’ve seen on Hannan is the New Statesman’s profile of him: http://www.newstatesman.com/uk-politics/2009/08/hannan-conservative-cameron

I don’t know what is more sad, Tonga Tim defending the Hannan monster or yet another Hannan post here.

Taxation is theft. Whether you steal to pay for a new car or free IVF, it’s theft, pure and simple.

Yes, Table Bear, that’s right. Especially in democracies with proportional representation (there are a few).