Spectator Australia · Mark Higgie · Wednesday 22 April 2026
Mark Higgie reflects on the surprise defeat of Viktor Orbán in the Spectator Australia, a masthead that spent a decade treating him as a model.
The Spectator's discovered Hungary now that Orbán's lost, which is the publishing equivalent of showing up to the wake with a casserole and opinions about the deceased. Ten years of strongman fan mail and suddenly the masthead's interested in the messy democratic aftermath. Metternich understood losers. This lot only know how to barrack for winners until the scoreboard changes.