Hannan-omics: “factual inaccuracies, dubious assertions”

The Georgian International Media Centre has reacted angrily to a new blog post by Tory bête noir, Daniel Hannan, which praises the repressive government’s economic performance.

Daniel-Hannan On his Daily Telegraph blog yesterday, the Conservative MEP wrote an article titled, “Libertarianism has made Georgia rich and free” which claims:

“Most governments responded to the credit crunch by borrowing more, taxing more, regulating more and owning more. Not that of Georgia.”

But the GIMC outline that in Hannan’s 249-word article there are “a number of serious factual inaccuracies and a number of dubious, to say the least, assertions.”

Hannan’s falsehoods include:

• claiming that Georgia has not borrowed when, in fact, the deficit has risen to 10 per cent of GDP in 2009;

• championing new fiscal rules which have not yet become law and which will not apply during a recession;

• highlighting restrictions on government spending which have resulted in the worst-funded health system in Europe;

• falsely claiming that Georgia has “continued to grow through the downturn”; and

• promoting Georgia, which is rated by Freedom House as a “not an elective democracy”, to the status of “free society”.

Read the full article here.

UPDATE 11.57

Sunder Katwala points out that Hannan has recently dropped Iceland, whose people he once acclaimed as “blue eyed sheikhs“, as his favoured economic model. We can only speculate about how the poor people of Georgia will feel about becoming the new Hannanite utopia.

http://twitter.com/bevaniteellie/status/9279258670 Ellie Gellard

RT @leftfootfwd The laughable Daniel Hannan gets his facts about Georgia's economic policy all wrong http://bit.ly/dy2UoI
http://twitter.com/tristanosborne/status/9279277910 Tristan Osborne

RT @HouseOfTwitsLab: RT @leftfootfwd The laughable Daniel Hannan gets his facts about Georgia's economic policy all wrong http://bit.ly/dy2UoI
http://twitter.com/nick_red/status/9279287584 Nicolas Redfern

RT @leftfootfwd: The laughable Daniel Hannan gets his facts about Georgia's economic policy all wrong http://bit.ly/dy2UoI
http://twitter.com/johninnit/status/9279294949 John

RT @leftfootfwd: The laughable Daniel Hannan gets his facts about Georgia's economic policy all wrong http://bit.ly/dy2UoI
http://twitter.com/stephennewton/status/9279331176 Stephen Newton

Hannan-omics: “factual inaccuracies, dubious assertions” http://bit.ly/a10Hfy
http://www.ubervu.com/conversations/www.leftfootforward.org/2010/02/hannan-omics-factual-inaccuracies-dubious-assertions/ uberVU – social comments

Social comments and analytics for this post…

This post was mentioned on Twitter by leftfootfwd: The laughable Daniel Hannan gets his facts about Georgia’s economic policy all wrong http://bit.ly/dy2UoI...
http://twitter.com/shamikdas/status/9279544151 Shamik Das

Mad Tory alert: RT @leftfootfwd: Mad Dan Hannan gets facts about Georgia's economic policy all wrong: http://is.gd/8DYF5 reports @wdjstraw
http://twitter.com/chrissssmith/status/9279584226 Chris Smith

RT @leftfootfwd: The laughable Daniel Hannan gets his facts about Georgia's economic policy all wrong http://bit.ly/dy2UoI
http://twitter.com/theselflessmeme/status/9280026209 Mike Finn

Hmmm. I do detest Hannan. http://www.leftfootforward.org/2010/02/hannan-omics-factual-inaccuracies-dubious-assertions/
http://twitter.com/fullfact/status/9280398408 Full Fact

Daniel Hannan MEP accused of getting his facts wrong on Georgian economy. Via @leftfootfwd http://bit.ly/dy2UoI
http://www.theorator2009.blogspot.com The Orator

You do realise this ‘Georgian International Media Centre’ is in fact the political opposition in Georgia, don’t you? They aren’t some objective commentator. This is very much a case of “they would say that, wouldnt’ they”.
http://twitter.com/bevaniteellie/status/9292327038 Ellie Gellard

Hannan bins former fave Iceland,in favour of repressive Georgian govt's economic approach,via @leftfootfwd http://tinyurl.com/yf694t5
Will Straw

So they’ve made up the deficit number, have they?
Mr. Sensible

“• highlighting restrictions on government spending which have resulted in the worst-funded health system in Europe;”

Oh are you really surprised that he is supporting that, given what he said about our National Health Service?

So much for being the “Party of the NHS”…