Today's papers showed a picture of a mother, father and their infant sprawled on a railway track with a policeman standing over them. The father's face is contorted in fear. Why? The policeman is trying to get them to accept help, not to harm them.
The father's despair is really only at his having to stay in Hungary for a bit and he's only really upset because he can't just ignore the law and zip right along to Germany as he would like to.
Imagine a homeless person coming to your door in distress and you offering them a seat and some food in the kitchen while you make up a comfy bed for them in the living room until you can find them something permanent.
Then imagine them refusing to sit in the kitchen, refusing to sleep in the living room and instead making a dash for your bedroom because that's the only room they want to be in. You would probably say they were taking the piss.
That is exactly what is happening if you put yourself in Europe's place. If you put yourself in Hungary's place you will notice the people refusing your help are not even satisfied with your bedroom, they covet a bedroom in the big house, two doors up. Which is really taking the piss.
A column of people who had already reached safety and who just had to wait to be signed in to the system in Hungary to, if they were genuine refugees, shortly achieve free movement within Europe have now gone walkabout. They have just left the area in which the adults had my sympathy.
The children will always have my sympathy because it isn't their fault their parents take unnecessary risks with them, put them in unnecessary danger and unnecessarily prolong their hardship.
I do not recognise it as the act of a responsible parent to take their child on an unnecessary pedestrian road-trip simply because they would rather be safe in Germany than just as safe in Hungary, where they already are, or just as safe in Austria, which they intend to pass right through before accepting help.
It is also really rather insulting to the people of Hungary and Austria that these supposedly desperate refugees do not consider Hungary and Austria acceptable places to live, both countries being safe and in many ways more comfortable than Syria was before the war that has displaced them began.
*Hungary is a popular destination for other Europeans, notably from Germany and Austria, to visit for holidays. It is a member of the EU and of NATO and refugees are at no particular risk by being there.
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