Opinion

Tories refuse to sit with extremists, not in the news anywhere

November 24, 2016 22:54
1 min read

Dan Hannan makes a good point on the reporting of the Hungarian elections:

Are they going soft at The Guardian?
Their feature on tomorrow’s Hungarian election makes all the usual
noises, focusing on the rise of the nasty Jobbik party (”xenophobic”,
“national tragedy”, “far Right on the rise across Europe” etc). Fair
enough.

Oddly, though, the report doesn’t mention the unpleasant side of the
much larger conservative party, Fidesz, which is on course to win.
Fidesz is fighting on a platform of protectionism and national quotas.
Several of its MPs have made openly anti-gipsy and anti-Semitic
statements (this one is especially colourful, but by no means exceptional).

Why, given the Grauniad’s obsession with the far Right, is
Fidesz’s ideological proximity to Jobbik not considered newsworthy?
Could it be because Fidesz is in the European People’s Party, whereas
the Conservatives’ Hungarian ally, the free-market MDF, is irreproachably mainstream? Are we seeing the old double standard, whereby pro-EU parties can be as bigoted as they like (see here)? Or is it simply that “Tories refuse to sit with extremists” doesn’t fit the narrative?