Political reporters no longer get to decide what's news. The days when a minister gave briefings to a dozen lobby correspondents, and thereby dictated the next day's headlines, are over. Now, a thousand bloggers decide for themselves what is interesting. If enough of them are tickled then, bingo, you're news.

In April 2009 he criticised an EC Directive that would end the exemption in British law for religious groups to discriminate on grounds on conscience. Why America Must Not Follow Europe. Towards 1996: Britain in a Multi-Speed Europe.

He currently serves on the Committee on Constitutional Affairs and the delegation to the ACP–EU Joint Parliamentary Assembly. He is also the Secretary-General of the Alliance of European Conservatives and Reformists (AECR). Hannan's ideology is localism and he has written several books arguing for democratic reform.