A MONTH after likening the massacre at Tiananmen Square to the poll tax riot, Ken Livingstone has ventured another judgment on international politics: Hugo Chávez, President of Venezuela, is “a beacon of democracy and social progress in the Latin America”.

You might have explained Mr Livingstone’s comments in China as misplaced ingratiation of politicians of commercial importance to London. But the mayor genuinely enthuses for Señor Chávez, who was guest of honour at a lunch at City Hall yesterday. Yet Mr Livingstone clearly had scant grasp of whom he was dealing with, or the difference between a democratic politician and a thuggish bigmouth.

In a risible “note to editors”, City Hall lists Señor Chávez’s election victories since 1998, while contriving not to mention his attempted military coup in 1992. “Chávez’s visit has been met with absurd claims from right-wing activists that he is some kind of dictator,” Livingstone fulminates. Chávez is not a dictator, but he is an authoritarian populist who has arrogated power to the office of president, hamstrung the judiciary, bypassed parliamentary government, curbed political rights and lauded Robert Mugabe.

Among the nefarious right-wingers whom Livingstone castigates are, presumably, Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International. “By broadening laws that punish disrespect for government authorities, the Venezuelan Government has flouted international human rights principles that protect free expression,” says HRW. In alleging that human rights campaigners are inciting turmoil, Señor Chávez has, says Amnesty, “exposed human rights defenders to serious dangers”.

More surprising is Mr Livingstone’s veneration for a supposedly radical president who speedily adopted orthodox austerity measures on coming to power. These contributed to steep recession despite a windfall of a rise in oil prices from mid-1999.

The adversary culture that recoils from its own society and transfers its yearnings to far-away continents is always with us, and rarely learns from its disappointments. President Chávez’s regional significance is likely to be ephemeral. But as a symbiosis of blustering demagogue and credulous venerator, the performance of President and Mayor is depressingly familiar.