Nigel Farage shouldn't do PMQs in power

And a defence of Viktor Orban

Addendum on Orban

I think much of the Anglophone commentary about Viktor Orban’s defeat has been deeply unfair. I retain, as a man who came of age with ‘Europa: Enemy at the Gates’, a great deal of affection for the thundering Calvinist who shut the border and started a public feud with George Soros in which he was, amazingly, victorious. Some of the criticisms come across as hypocritical: let it be known, ‘tradcath’ Viktor Orban abolished income tax for everyone under the age of 25 and nationalised private pension funds; ‘technocratic’ people in the ‘New Right’ defend the triple lock. Orban was, in fact, more economically pro-growth than those who call him a postlib. The Orban project wasn’t Meritocracy, it was, however, the only working case of right-wing institutional capture in Europe with an interesting and understudied economic legacy which more than makes up for its pragmatic adoption of ‘Christian democracy’. Hungary provided, in the mid to late 2010s, a working model which plainly refuted the idea, which I think people forget the popularity of, that everywhere east of Berlin was a hellhole.

This is all fairly minor stuff but one potentially harmful mutation of the commentary is that Orban failed because he was ‘too close to MAGA.’ So long as 95% of the British “Right” are uncomfortable ferociously attacking anyone who defends the mobile phone ban on 16 year olds, MAGA is going to lead Europe because people like me, ordinary citizens, need someone to look after our interests. When J’accuse sounded the call, it was the State Department who answered, while the British Right are still pretending Keir Starmer knowing your I.P address is an issue of “sovereignty.” You are going to get Eva Vlanderbrook whether you like it or not until very basic, nationalism 101 concerns are solved first.

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