Viktor orbán

Freedom House is a remarkable and largely admirable organisation. Over the years it has done some great work challenging governments with a tendency towards the authoritarian. Yet its attacks on the government of Hungary are increasingly off-kilter. Regular readers will recall that the Hungarian government differs from the German government in believing that it is not desirable to invite the entire developing world to come and live in your country. The Hungarian government – led by Prime Minister Viktor Orban – also differs from the views of Hungary’s wealthiest son, George Soros, who along with the numerous NGOs that he funds has spent recent years undermining the borders of Europe, and specifically the borders of Hungary.

A depression has settled on the Liddle household ever since Norbert Hofer narrowly failed in his bid to become the president of Austria. I like a man who keeps a Glock pistol in his jacket pocket, and there is something noble in the cut of his jib. Norbert was thwarted by the voters of Red Vienna and the usual fraudulent postal ballots, most of which will have come from immigrants, as happens time and again in this country. So he lost. Instead the Austrians are saddled with a lunatic, Alexander Van der Bellen, a hand-wringing Green halfwit representing what George Orwell was habituated to call the ‘pansy left’. Interestingly, both of the two leading candidates for the job of president seem to loathe Austria and wish for it to be abolished.

If you are going to try to put people beyond the pale on the grounds of what they have said it pays at least to be consistent. This week, left-wing MPs were cock a hoop at achieving the required number of signatures on a petition calling for Donald Trump to be banned from the UK for the matter to be debated in Parliament.  More than 560,000 signed, with the result that the issue will be discussed in Westminster Hall on 18 January. There was no visible protest, on the other hand, against David Cameron meeting Hungarian PM Viktor Orban in Budapest this week, no audible call for Mr Orban to be banned from making a return visit to the UK. There was even praise from liberals for Mr Orban’s strong words to David Cameron complaining about negative images of Hungarians in the UK.

Fascinating events in Hungary where Prime Minister Viktor Orban continues to come under fire from other EU member states for trying to maintain what we used to call ‘borders’. This has now led Orban into direct confrontation with Hungary’s richest export – billionaire financier George Soros.  Orban identifies Soros as being one among a number of ‘activists’ whose organisations share part of the blame for encouraging migrants to come to Europe and for lobbying Europeans to regard borders and sovereignty as things of the past. Soros has now responded in a most illuminating manner, confirming that the many groups he funds are indeed working for precisely the ends Prime Minister Orban described.