PM Brown's attempt to silence MEP criticisms detailed

I remarked on my post of yesterday morning, here, that Dan Hannan MEP had stated on his blog that Gordon Brown had tried to ensure that never again would he have to be so openly criticised as he was by that same MEP, now a YouTube international star, but had no further details of just how such an attempt was made. Now thanks to the blog of a former British Ambassador, Craig Murray, with remaining contacts in the FCO, linked here, I can quote the following extra detail:

Brown's vanity is enormous. I still have many friends in the FCO,and staff in the UK Mission to the European Union (UKREP Brussels) were horrified to receive an instruction from the FCO to ensure that the situation when Gordon Brown was obliged to hear a speech against him in the European Parliament from MEP Daniel Hannan, could not happen again. No. 10 reasoned, quite unrealistically, that other EU leaders would not want to suffer potential embarassment the same way, so there should be wide support for such a measure.

This was unrealistic because, while there may be some sympathy in the unelected Council of Ministers, it would be the elected European Parliament which would have to make any procedural changes. There is institutional tension between the two bodies, and to convince MEPs that they cannot criticise members of the Council of Europe in their presence, is an impossible task.

So our poor men and women in Brussels duly put out some feelers and found that, not only was there no sympathy, but nobody else thought that anything bad had happened. Wasn't this democracy? Isn't parliament for debate?

Of course, the Westminster one isn't, with Brown only swanning in for half an hour a week for Prime Minister's questions, half of which are planted and rehearsed, and the whole chaired by an outrageously biased pro-New Labour Speaker. Hat tip the wrinkled weasel blog