I'll take as my text the Guardian's coverage of this matter, not because I think it especially objectionable, but because it demonstrates the misjudgments that have abounded around the media law and Viktor Orbán in particular. 

The Guardian calls Viktor Orbán "power-hungry". There are very few politicians anywhere who aren't. That's the whole aim of politics. Are Cameron, Clegg, Miliband, Obama and Merkel not "power-hungry"? Are footballers reproached for having an unnatural interest in scoring goals?

Then a Guardian editorial (one hopes a little tongue in cheek) had as its title "Hungary: one-party rule".  Orbán and Fidesz won the elections last April with  67.88 per cent of the parliamentary seats. Think about that. That's a result that's almost impossible to achieve in a democracy: more than two-thirds of the parliament.  

More than half the voters (52.93 per cent) chose Orbán (and there were plenty of other parties to go for — including my favourite, the Two-Tailed Dog Party). That's almost embarrassing in a free election. That's a result that Cameron and Merkel, who barely scraped into power, would cut a limb off for. Think of the "mandate" that confers on you. Is it in the Guardian's view a crime to be popular and successful? Orbán sportingly offered his crushed opponents more seats on parliamentary committees than they were entitled to, but of course his generosity and democratic gesture have gone unrecognised.

Orbán is also styled "a right-wing populist" by the Guardian. Orbán isn't even really right-wing. Like many other anti-communists, merely because of his opposition to a totalitarian system he has been smeared as being far-right or anti-Semitic. Orbán's outlook is more Labour than Conservative (consider his rejection of IMF austerity), but because politicians and journalists in the West can only  think in narrow terms of Left and Right, he is placed in that box.

The Guardian reported that the "leading daily newspaper" Népszabadság had as the headline on its front page, "The freedom of the press in Hungary comes to an end". That's accurate reporting, but the Guardian overlooked significant facts. Népszabadság is the leading daily because it was the newspaper of the Communist Party (MSZMP)and it remains the mouthpiece for the Socialist Party (the home of the ex-communists, the oligarchy that still owns and controls most of Hungary from the comfort of the Buda Hills). Népszabadság was the paper that cheered the execution of Hungarians who wanted democracy and free speech, so for it to act as a champion of free speech is  like someone from the SS running a workshop on human rights.

Orbán's concern about the Hungarian minorities in the neighbouring countries (where they have been very badly treated) is also interpreted by the Guardian as another manifestation of evil. Curiously, if you're an Arab or a Muslim anywhere in the world you're apparently entirely justified to be aggrieved about the plight of the Palestinians. The Irish are entitled to issue passports to those born in Northern Ireland, but Orbán's notion of giving citizenship to Hungarians three feet on the other side of the border is destabilising Europe.

There is a curious double standard in both politics and the media. If you've been involved at any time with the far-Right, you're a pariah,  an odious sicko, no matter how much you recant, but it's OK to play far-Left (one only has to look at the number of British ministers who started off as communists, or the spectacle of Tony Blair campaigning for the ex-Communists in Hungary). One other thing hasn't been considered in the hoo-haa around the media law: the idea that the media in Hungary might need reform.