How To Be A Liberal

About the Author Ian Dunt is a columnist with the I newspaper and presents the Origin Story and Oh God, What Now? podcasts. His first book, Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? (Canbury Press, 2017), on Britain's challenge in leaving the European Union, was a critically-acclaimed bestseller. In How To Be A Liberal (Canbury, 2020), the journalist tells the epic story of personal freedom. Ranging across history, politics and economics, it makes a powerful case for a radical, egalitarian liberalism that can safeguard individuals while looking after us all. His third book, not yet released, is How Westminster Words (And Why It Doesn't) Dunt looks at the rise of nationalism around the world, and outlines the threat it poses to the freedom of the individual. This is how he explains the nationalist blueprint of Viktor Orbán's Hungary: Extract - The New Nationalism Liberalism had been weakened by the financial crash, the rise of identity war and anti-truth. Then, in 2016, nationalism punched through its defences with breakthroughs in Britain and America. For many people, this was the start of the nationalist takeover. But in fact its momentum had been building for years. Hungary's leader, Viktor Orbán, had blazed the trail. He demonstrated how a nationalist agenda could create a narrative of division, amass vast executive power, and subvert and manipulate democracy. Orbán's ascent had begun a decade earlier with an audio recording that changed the direction of Hungarian politics. In 2006, comments from the Socialist prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, to party members were secretly taped and released to the public. 'We have fucked it up,' Gyurcsány could be heard saying. 'Not a little but a lot. We have obviously lied throughout the past one and a half to two years. It was perfectly clear that what we were saying was not true. We did not do anything for four years. Nothing. I had to pretend for one and a half years that we were governing. Instead, we lied in the morning, at noon and at night.' It is hard to think of any political communication, in any country, in living memory that had a more devastating impact on an incumbent leader. Gyurcsány had shredded his reputation and that of the Socialist party. Riots erupted in the street, but he struggled on in power for several more years. Then the financial crisis hit. The collapse of the banking system battered eastern Europe. Before the crisis, around $50 billion of investment flowed into the region every quarter. In the last quarter of 2008, that had reversed into an outflow of $100 billion. Domestic currencies plunged and the cost of servicing international loans spiralled. In a matter of weeks, many Hungarian families saw their mortgage or car loan bills surge by 20 per cent. Hungary was forced to seek an emergency package from the IMF and EU. The terms were actually relatively generous, but public opinion inside the country viewed it as a humiliation. Nationalists branded the requirements attached to the loan an act of neocolonialism. They compared it to the Treaty of Trianon after the First World War, when Hungary was stripped of two-thirds of its territory. Orbán, the leader of the far-right Fidesz party, took the spoils. He swept into power in 2010 with two-thirds of the parliamentary seats – a super-majority that allowed him to do almost anything he wanted. And what he wanted was to destroy liberalism in Hungary. Buy the book and start listening

About the Author Ian Dunt is a columnist with the I newspaper and presents the Origin Story and Oh God, What Now? podcasts. His first book, Brexit: What the Hell Happens Now? (Canbury Press, 2017), on Britain's challenge in leaving the European Union, was a critically-acclaimed bestseller. In How To Be A Liberal (Canbury, 2020), the journalist tells the epic story of personal freedom. Ranging across history, politics and economics, it makes a powerful case for a radical, egalitarian liberalism that can safeguard individuals while looking after us all. His third book, not yet released, is How Westminster Words (And Why It Doesn't) Dunt looks at the rise of nationalism around the world, and outlines the threat it poses to the freedom of the individual. This is how he explains the nationalist blueprint of Viktor Orbán's Hungary: Extract - The New Nationalism Liberalism had been weakened by the financial crash, the rise of identity war and anti-truth. Then, in 2016, nationalism punched through its defences with breakthroughs in Britain and America. For many people, this was the start of the nationalist takeover. But in fact its momentum had been building for years. Hungary's leader, Viktor Orbán, had blazed the trail. He demonstrated how a nationalist agenda could create a narrative of division, amass vast executive power, and subvert and manipulate democracy. Orbán's ascent had begun a decade earlier with an audio recording that changed the direction of Hungarian politics. In 2006, comments from the Socialist prime minister, Ferenc Gyurcsány, to party members were secretly taped and released to the public. 'We have fucked it up,' Gyurcsány could be heard saying. 'Not a little but a lot. We have obviously lied throughout the past one and a half to two years. It was perfectly clear that what we were saying was not true. We did not do anything for four years. Nothing. I had to pretend for one and a half years that we were governing. Instead, we lied in the morning, at noon and at night.' It is hard to think of any political communication, in any country, in living memory that had a more devastating impact on an incumbent leader. Gyurcsány had shredded his reputation and that of the Socialist party. Riots erupted in the street, but he struggled on in power for several more years. Then the financial crisis hit. The collapse of the banking system battered eastern Europe. Before the crisis, around $50 billion of investment flowed into the region every quarter. In the last quarter of 2008, that had reversed into an outflow of $100 billion. Domestic currencies plunged and the cost of servicing international loans spiralled. In a matter of weeks, many Hungarian families saw their mortgage or car loan bills surge by 20 per cent. Hungary was forced to seek an emergency package from the IMF and EU. The terms were actually relatively generous, but public opinion inside the country viewed it as a humiliation. Nationalists branded the requirements attached to the loan an act of neocolonialism. They compared it to the Treaty of Trianon after the First World War, when Hungary was stripped of two-thirds of its territory. Orbán, the leader of the far-right Fidesz party, took the spoils. He swept into power in 2010 with two-thirds of the parliamentary seats – a super-majority that allowed him to do almost anything he wanted. And what he wanted was to destroy liberalism in Hungary. Buy the book and start listening