So the British government, through its diplomatic outposts in Budapest, has signalled approval that charges against the Hungarian mayor over the 2025 Pride march have been dropped. A human rights win, they call it. I suppose we must applaud this gesture of liberality, this triumph of the permissive society.
But let us not be naive. This is the same British establishment that, like the later Roman emperors, feeds the mob with bread and circuses while the empire crumbles. The charges were dropped not because of a sudden burst of enlightenment but because the machinery of state, both in Hungary and Britain, knows that a mayor arrested for a parade is a martyr worth avoiding.
Better to smile, nod, and pat ourselves on the back for being so terribly civilised while our own societies rot from within. The Victorian era at least had the decency to pretend at moral seriousness. Today we celebrate the dissolution of all restraint.
Yes, the mayor is free. But what exactly have we won? Another parade for the decadent classes to preen themselves on their virtue while the real questions of national identity and social cohesion go unasked.
I am Arthur Penhaligon, and I am here to make you think. And probably annoy you.
