Nicholas Soames Pwns Dan Hannan

Despite the audiences ready to lap up his Europhobic wibblings, MEP and occasional Tory Dan, Dan The Oratory Man is not a happy bunny right now. This is because he has been made the subject of some seriously adverse Twitter feedback from Nicholas Soames, full-time Tory, MP for Mid Susses, and grandson of Winshton. The result of the exchanges left Hannan running off and hiding behind the excuse of blocking Soames.

As with most of Hannan’s Twitter excursions, this one revolved around his view on the EU, and his problem of finding there is a significant number of folks out there who do not agree with him. In this particular case, he was also facing the prospect of debating with Soames, who is not backwards in coming forwards, and who just doesn’t care - about, well, anything, and especially not Hannan’s sensitive nature.

Hannan cannot complain about what happened - he started it, asking “Does @nsoamesmp truly imagine that Leavers want to see ‘our amazing country diminished’? Seriously?” Soames retorted that said diminution was the “absolutely inevitable result of everything you propose deeply damaging to our country of which you understand so little”. We now had Game On. How would Dan defend himself?

Hannan decided that aloofness was the best form of defence, sniffily telling “I've always allowed that sincere and patriotic people can disagree with me about this; a pity you can't do the same”. This cut no mustard with Soames, who countered “at the end of the day there is something deeply un-British about Brexit and its dismal retreat from the battle of life”. Dismal. A bit Ricardo and Malthus.

Even when Hannan tried to extol the virtues of the natural world, he received no respite. Tweeting a photo of hawthorn in Spring, he mused “Truly, ours is a blessed country”. He might have expected a murmur of agreement, but instead Soames scoffed “then leave it alone and stop trying to bugger it up”. And there was more.

Just to rub it in, Soames told Dan “man up, eat your Sunday pasta and return to the fray with the beef eaters of England”, letting him know who the real Englishman was. All of this was too much, leaving Hannan to blubber “I block only in cases of repeated, aggressive and foul-mouthed trolling. Sadly, @nsoamesmp has now come into that category”. Soames was contemptuous: “foul mouthed? Name it wetty”.

With Dan having retired hurt - very - all that was left was for Soames to conclude “I have achieved a position of some prominence in our public discourse: I have been blocked by the boy @DanHannanMEP the great debater #NOT”, adding, just to twist the knife, “[Hannan] was at the very rear of the queue when humour was handed out”.

Nicholas Soames may not be the oldest-established Twitter user, but he’s got the medium figured out. And he’s figured out the pomposity and vacuity of Dan Hannan, who should consider himself lucky. At least it wasn’t his dishonesty being called out this time.