Thread by @pmdfoster

Listen here to @zoesqwilliams at 2.55.36 on @BBCRadio4 calling Hungary a “very, very dark totalitarian state”.

This is risible. And Justin Webb should have pulled her up 1/

bbc.co.uk/sounds/play/m0…

Hungary is a huge problem. And orban playing fast and loose with the ground rules of liberal democracy. But it is not a totalitarian state.

I’ve myself written report it from hungry about many of the issues./2

telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/0…

But that kind of loose language is as bad and helpful as some of the nonsense on the right.

I don’t really want to get into the fight over @Roger_Scruton but.../3

Again @zoesqwilliams Misses the point about the impact that the 2015 Migration event had on Hungary.

you can accuse Orban Of similarly corralling them at Keleti railway station (I was there) but they did come in large numbers and in an uncontrolled way./4

Orban (Who had just lost a by-election) undoubtedly maximise the disruption in order to make a political point.

The overall low levels of migration now I’ll besides the political point/5

But in truth @Roger_scruton Was closer to the facts of what happened.

He was also write the power has “gone to Orban head” - as I have written in the @Telegraph

telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/04/0… /7

As I say. I don’t want to get into the Scruton, tho I tweeted.@jdportes Approvingly on this subject yesterday fwiw

But (as we see daily on #Brexit) this kind of lazy, simplistic labelling is totally self-defeating /8

No doubt Orbans PR machine is clipping @zoesqwilliams silly remark as we speak - as proof that all the criticisms against him are bilge.

And I don’t mean this to be an ad hominem attack on one commentator. It’s symptomatic of problem on Left and Right

End whinge /10

Ps. Am now boarding a flight. So if silent am in air, not hiding from whatever brickbats are flying.