On David Cameron’s never-ending EU renegotiation tour, Budapest should have been the political equivalent of slipping into a nice warm public bath.
It is hard to imagine a closer union than between our Prime Minister and Hungary’s Viktor Orban. This is a chap whose tough talk on benefit scroungers won him three elections, whose response to the Syrian refugee crisis was to erect a fence along his border, and who – of course – went to Oxford.
There is the odd difference. Having played pro football for FC Felcsut – once, at the age of 38, cancelling a cabinet meeting to do so – Orban has not yet made Cameron’s mistake of forgetting their name in public.
That’s not the only one. Like virtually every other European leader Cameron has foisted himself upon over the past few weeks, Orban is fine with all of Cameron’s demands, More than fine, “grateful”, he said, with the exception of the only one that matters – the clampdown on in-work benefits for EU migrants.
Orban spoke in fluent English throughout the joint press conference, switching to Magyar for the one answer that mattered. “This is important,” he said. “The language must be precise.” It must also, one suspects, be for the benefit of his voters.
This is how it was translated: “We would like to make it clear we are not migrants into the UK. We are citizens of the European Union who can take jobs anywhere within the EU. We do not want to go to the UK and take away from them, to be parasites. Those Hungarians who are there are contributing… They should not be discriminated against.”
Earlier, Cameron reminded him that he doesn’t have to hold “my referendum” until the end of 2017. “What matters is the substance, not the timing.” But the reason he has been zipping around Europe like an easyJet air hostess is because he wanted a deal done by February. Next month. It’s not happening.
