Since his election victory in 2010, Viktor Orban has been something of a bad boy in some European circles, particularly on the centre and on the left. But one needs to keep in mind at the same time that he has received congratulations on his victory from other quarters of European political public opinion, particularly on the right, most noticeably from the former leader of Germany's Christian Social Union, Horst Seehofer, who is now Germany's interior minister.
And the lesson from these congratulations is that some people on the political right in Europe think that Mr Orban's stridently anti-immigrant campaign not only paid political dividends for him, a lesson that they'd be keen to learn from, but is also fundamentally a correct policy. So one would be going down the wrong track, I think, to think that there is universal abhorrence of Mr Orban and his methods of rule. Far from it. More broadly, Mr Orban will be feeling very pleased with his victory and his present situation in Europe, I should think.
