The curious case of MEP Daniel Hannan and the mysterious country walks In one of the more bizarre developments of silly season 2017, it has emerged that Daniel Hannan, the Conservative MEP […]

In one of the more bizarre developments of silly season 2017, it has emerged that Daniel Hannan, the Conservative MEP and author of Brexit manifesto What Next, shared stock images of Wales and the US while claiming to be walking in the English countryside.

In May 2016 the MEP for South East England wrote that he was going on a walk and stopping for a pie at the Vine at Hannington, a “traditional country pub serving home cooked food and real ales”.

“15 miles up and down over Hampshire’s sloping fields, pausing for a pie @VineHannington. God, I love England in May,” he declared in a now deleted tweet. He shared an image of a gate, a Hawthorn hedge and some rolling hills.

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Unfortunately, that idyllic scene is nowhere to be found in Hampshire, which falls within Mr Hannan’s constituency. It is an image of Godre’r Graig, Glamorgan in Wales, and was taken by keen photographer John Ball in May 1998.

John Ball told the blog Zelo Street, which first spotted the tweets, that he had taken the photo 150 miles away from where Mr Hannan claimed to be.

“The photo used by Daniel Hannan on 6 May 2016 is a copy of the photo in the ‘Images of Wales’ feature on my website. I took the photo myself eighteen years ago on 20 May 1998,” he said.

MEP Daniel Hannan talks global trade

“The photo shows May blossom in a hedgerow near Godre’r Graig in the Swansea valley of South Wales, that’s over 150 miles from Hannington in Hampshire where Mr Hannan claims to have been.

He added: “I am not subscribed to Twitter and I do not have time to contact Mr Hannan to point out his deception.”

Next stop… Vermont

Mr Hannan wrote on Twitter some months later that he was walking in the Home Counties and enjoying the scenery.

“And then, suddenly, the dandelions. Ah, the sweet sounds and sights of summer and the sun,” he wrote above an image of a field filled with dandelions. The tweet has since been deleted.

This image is actually of a field in Barre, Vermont, has been taken by a professional photographer, and is used by a blogger, Ruth Kassinger, to discuss the merits of the dandelion plant as a source of rubber.

The images were shared by Independent journalist Tom Peck on Twitter yesterday.

How have I never seen this? Dan Hannan goes on imagined walk in Hampshire. Tweets stock pics of Wales. Is he mad? https://t.co/3vgg1DS2ii pic.twitter.com/vDV5G1t4QV — Tom Peck (@tompeck) July 17, 2017

They were roundly mocked, but the economist and managing director of Europe Economics Andrew Lilico jumped to defend Mr Hannan.

i has contacted Mr Hannan for comment to see if indeed he downloaded random pictures from the internet of different places after returning from a walk to “give us a [very general] sense of what he’d seen” because he was too civilised to do so whilst actually walking.

@pascalehughes