Live and Let Lie - James Bond stumbles into the culture wars

Charlie Higson’s new book ‘On His Majesty’s Secret Service’ affirms Bond’s decline.

A new monarch, a new 007. Expanding Bond’s deterioration to encompass political judgement as well as emotional fragility, Charlie Higson’s new book ‘On His Majesty’s Secret Service’ affirms Bond’s decline.

Technically its proficient-spare prose and narrative poise deliver a readable story - but in its lazy compliance with liberal shibboleths it provides a compliant and propagandistic vision wholly superfluous without the foil of Fleming’s creation.

Loosely plotted to reflect the Coronation, the novel pits our hero against the nefarious Aethelstan of Wessex, putative claimant of the lost Saxon dynasty. Wessex’s purposes are rendered peculiarly suspicious by his choice of home: Hungary.

‘Bond felt a deep sense of gloom that this beautiful, civilized, orderly country had been dragged back towards the far right by Victor Orban…stirring Hungarians up with his anti-Semitic conspiracy theories’

This recoil to the perceived injustices of Fidesz government reveals both an alarmingly simplistic understanding of modern Hungary and exposes the pervasive influence of groupthink on an entire generation of Western commentariat.

Abetted in his mischief, Aethelstan has a cabal of disaffected aristocrats, thwarted conservative politicians and malign populists whose aversion to centrist conformity marks them as dangerous subversives.

Hungary and specifically Orban have become a lightning rod by which anti-social tendencies and retrograde beliefs are gaged and condemned.

Like Aethelstan Wessex I am of the legion of the damned. Having lived in Hungary for nine years I have witnessed first-hand the challenges and achievements of this fascinating land and the deluge of disinformation which has assailed its reputation.

My attachments here are not primarily political - I love the people, landscape, culture and history far more than any single electoral configuration. Nor am I a Fidesz asset, like most Hungarians I have a nuanced view of both them and their competitors.

What disturbs me is the canting denunciations by foreigners of a state they make no effort to understand.

Particularly noxious is the charge of anti-Semitism so casually suggested.

The horrors of the Holocaust are an indelible tragedy and much of Europe has had to reckon with the role their governments took in its instigation.

Since the days of the Soviet Union Hungarian scholars have vacillated between acceptance of guilt and deflection of responsibility, often depending on trending ideological currents. In 2015 Orban ended this ambivalence, stating in an interview with Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu:

‘At the time we decided that instead of protecting the Jewish community, we chose collaboration with the Nazis…I made it clear that this can never happen again.’

Rhetoric, however salutary, is insufficient to effect genuine improvement. Fortunately, evidence suggests it is the basis for policy. In 2022, at the annual conference of the European Jewish Association, a study revealed that the best quality of life for Jewish communities can be found in Italy and Hungary. Chief Rabbi of The Association of Jewish Communities Slomo Koves reiterated the findings:

‘Hungary today is one of the safest places for European Jewry’.

Vigilance is essential to preserve this achievement, though given the spate of Synagogue burnings in France, Germany and Belgium, it seems that the EU could do worse than reflect on the performance of its Eastern member.

Inevitably, much energy is given to analysing the supposed psychodrama between Orban and his nemesis George Soros.

In a modest way I was a party to this confrontation attending the Central European University in 2017 (a Soros foundation) during the period when it was forced to move most of its operation to Vienna.

The direct cause of the closure was legislative - Lex CEU, a ruling, significantly tightened the regulations of international universities operating in Hungary.

More fundamentally, the decision resulted from a deepening chasm between the vision of the university and the mandate of the government.

Established in the wake of Communism, the CEU was designed to provide opportunities for a generation of young graduates discarding the strictures of Marxist dogma. It was liberal in the classical sense offering free debate and uninhibited inquiry, a marvellous corrective to decades of coercion.

By 2017 this cause had been partly co-opted by a more strident form of activism rooted not in educational imperatives but social agendas. Proximity to radical NGOs underscored a tendency to partisan stances increasingly at odds with government positions and irrelevant to the needs of ordinary Hungarians.

Attending a seminar hosted by a think tank coordinator, I was dismayed by the naked bias expressed; Margaret Thatcher apparently was a homophobe, so every aspect of her legacy was contaminated.

Far more damaging than a simple attack was the principle that an arbitrary measure of postmodern virtue should be the means of deducing someone’s worth. It is a ruthless way of discrediting awkward and dissenting voices without reference to their ideas or legacies. I left the university shortly after.

That Soros is of Jewish heritage is commonly adduced as a symptom of Hungarian prejudice - though it can be easily dismissed.

Yoram Hazony, the Israeli-American academic, has been a regular and feted visitor to Budapest in recent years. Informed by the model of Israel, Hazony offers an apology for the nation state as the bedrock of democracy - a vision shared by many in Hungary.

Much as I regret the closure of the CEU, I cannot see it as the signal of fascist revival or existential threat - it is a sad indictment of militant culture wars being played out across the Western world.

All states strive for improvement from inherited flaws and contingent limitations, and the recovery from decades of Communism is a particularly acute handicap. There are many hurdles to surmount but next time 007 is in a gambling mood he should place a bet on Hungary, as he might be pleasantly surprised.