True Democracy

They still have a thing or two to learn about democracy in Hungary, where people have been rioting because their Prime Minister lied.

According to the Guardian, Ferenc Gyurcsány "emerged from the communist youth movement to become one of Hungary's richest men during the privatisations of the 1990s". His opponents in the Fidesz party, by contrast, are "rightwing". Given that the Guardian elsewhere describes one of Britain's parties of privatisation and surveillance at home plus belligerence abroad as centre-left, this is perhaps not as paradoxical as it sounds.

Most of the rioters were young men, which shows that the Hungarians have yet to discover the democratic joys of the ASBO and the diagnosis of personality disorder. Also, Gyurcsány not only admitted lying (in a speech "peppered with obscenities", according to your Tunbridge Wells correspondent) but allowed himself to be recorded making the admission and then, when the recording was made public, admitted its authenticity. As we on the mainland are well aware, this sort of thing could never happen in a more established democracy.