Too much saying Pete dude. Long tale fluffy – bubble like a big glass of sparkling water, only a burp remains after it. Like or not this régime will make a new constitution. This régime will put the liar (he confessed to his fellows) and his followers out of power forever. This régime will – I hope – not make too much mistakes. I do not want to be padder. There is just one counter-argument against one of your „ultimate” truths. Lot of amendments you wrote - around 40 - were issued next to their own constitution draft. You want to suggest/state that it is nonsense. Where is the problem? A few composes and all work out its final shape. They speak about it, discussing, arguments are against each other. That’s normal. Do you know the joke about why Hungarians’ cauldron does not need guard when sinners sit inside in sizzling fat? Why you and your same mind “friend” pull others back?

Fischer says - "Most of the condemnations came long before the law was translated into English, so critics like Luxembourg's Foreign Minister Jean Asselborn and the New York Times who incorrectly claimed that Angela Merkel had "spoken out strongly" against the law are lining up with the Ayatollah Khomeini in attacking something they haven't read (unless they've been taking evening classes in Hungarian)." Someone, please, inform this literary luminary, that, in case he hasn't noticed yet, there are lots of people earning a living by being highly competent and academically qualified translators. I can recommend a few in London, if he wants me to. It will also surprise him, no doubt, that embassies in Budapest also employ such unheard of (by Mr Fischer) human resources. As for the Hungarian government translations - well, I've dealt with that earlier today. In the case of the media law, the European Union made a public point of NOT wanting the official Hungarian translation, and who can blame them? They can do the job better themselves. Any more lies and red herrings, Mr Fischer? Or you simply enjoy repeating the propaganda of this disgraceful administration in Budapest? Each to his own, I guess.

Just for the record, when Durable Frog and others like him were praising the Kádár dictatorship, those liberals who according to thze likes of him have an "immense hatred" towards Hungarians, were publishing samizdat, getting chased around by the communist police, were losing their jobs, their families, their livelihoods, getting exiled and, if unlucky, seeing the inside of jailhouses. However, all the armchair freedom fighters peddling their bulldust here and elsewhere obviously do not want the facts to get in the way of their fantasies. The (strictly rhetorical) question presents itself - Who is really peddling hatred here and elsewhere?

Thanks Mr. Fischer for this refreshing article. Too bad there's few of the likes of you who do not gather their 'information' from sources of the old SZDSZ, the 'liberal' party of Hungary that fuels an immense hatred towards Hungarians and every bit of Hungarian tradition and pride. They, luckily for us Hungarians, have been voted out of the parliament. But their press continues to slander on. Thanks again for countering their lies.

If a "howling coyote" (just LOVE your, ahem, "style", Silvano) is to be permitted an update from this morning, it will illustrate to perfection the methodology of this regime and the depths to which it is prepared to sink. The regime sent an English language "translation" of its constitutional concoction to the European Parliement. Nice, EXCEPT, the total Preamble has been omitted, many other controversial points are drastically different in English from the Hungarian law now in Parliament and even contains a Clause which has no trace at all in the actual legislation. As for Mr Fischer's and his friends' claims about how many months have been available to discuss, debate the Constitution, I would like your readers to know the fact, as opposed to barefaced lies. Mr Orbán yesterday announced in Parliament, that his new constitution is to be "permanent". In itself a strange declaration for a democrat(sic!). The contents of the proposed legislation were only made public on March 14, 2011 - 15 days ago and almost immediately around 40 amendments to their OWN legislation were announced. The total length of debate allocated for his "permanent" constitution is nine (9!!!) sitting days. All procedural, as opposed to legislative amendment, changes proposed by opposition parties ranging from the centre left Socialists, through the center right LMP, to the neo nazi Jobbik have been swept aside. So much for that. In the meantime, the Fischers, the Silvanos and their numerous ilk peddle abuse, libel and lies, sing hymns of praise to a regime which arguably has more ex-communist apparatchiks, functionaries, secret police agents and the like in its ranks, than the still exisiting and miniscule communist outfit, the Workers' Party. However, those of your readers with a brain larger than a peanut and who I am certain are in the majority, will surely notice that none of these soapbox orators are bothering to confront the FACTS I and others have listed (see Silvano). As for anyone with a forensic bent of mind, all they have to do is search for this disgraceful legislation online, and then compare it with the pack of lies submitted to the European Parliament today. Which, incidentally, is identical to what they tried to do with the equally disgraceful original media legislation. Got found out then, got found out again today and will do so again in the future. There's a pattern there, folks! It is no accident that while Mr Fischer's "democrat" felt it important to submit to national referendum the previous government's legislative proposal to charge a sum of around 80 British pence a day for a hospital stay, Orbán flatly refuses, as stated again in Parliament yeterday, to submit his "permanent"(!!!) constitution to the judgment of the Hungarian people. Big Brother knows best. As the saying goes, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck and looks like a duck, the very strong likelihood is that it IS a duck, not a democrat.

Middle of Europe has been ill. Trauma caused it in 1920 when the west lead by French broken this fruit bowl -I call Hungary- in Trianon . Many „sham -doctor" tried to cure her disease without success. Many corps looters – robbers, maggots have risen during decades looting her decreasing belongings like talent, courage, firmness of mind, Hungarian soul and try to push her into bottomless morass of servitude. There is a guy now and his party tries to bring salvage. He tries to give back our identity, character and not only for those who are within official border of the mutilated country but he wants it for our neighbors’ who are ourselves. They are sometimes flustered but show grim courage. Thanks for this publication Mr. Fisher. Do not be bothered by howling coyotes.

Mr Fischer is a brilliant and entertaining author, who obviously knows how to stretch a good yarn ... or he is simply bereft of the facts of the case. Just a few random points. 1- Calling the opposition to the current mess Communists is dishonest and ridiculous on two counts - a) apart from the odd leftover oldtimer, Socialist MPs are not even all of a former MSZP background, let alone Communist almost 22 years after regime change and until the last election even included a veteran of the revolution, who was originally sentenced to death, Dr Imre Mécs, b) The top echelon of Fidesz is made up to a very large extent of former Communist era apparatchiks, with their recent appointments to the Constitutional Court, as well as the newly minted President (Communist era ambassador to Bern and Madrid, Sports High-and-mighty with the rank and pa yof a Deputy Minister). The list is far from complete ... indeed it is endless. Investigate the Foreign Minister, for instance, or the Minister for Economics, the whole bunch. Mr Fischer claims Orbán is a democrat. I suggest our jolly little author follow his own advice and read the proposed Constitution, it is in the public domain. His hair will stand on end. Just one little gem - and there are dozens - the current Republican consitution specifies the right to equal pay, for equal work. The new authoritarian one removes this right. And there are dozens of similar gems. You see, unlike Mr Fischer, I have taken the trouble to read the document and listen to Parliament. The whole thing is in Newspeak, not Hungarian. Would have made George Orwell very proud. This is a regime which is determined to stay in control, even if it loses an election. Every decision they make moves in this direction, achieved through the lengths of appointments and the strict selection of party acolytes to ALL positions of public influence, from the Prosecutor General's Office to the Committe which oversees and determines the names of geographic locations (I kid you not!!!!). The Constitution is fuzzy, most of the real decisions which set out chapter and verse of the Fidesz counterrevolution will be contained in 2/3 majority legislative acts, to be enacted later in the year. So, in effect, those like your Fidesz admirers in this forum, who rabbit on endlessly, don't even know what it is they are actually supporting. So much for their and Mr Fischer's somewhat tattered credibility. In the meantime, in the civil/public service everyone's Fidesznik son, uncle, wife and auntie is getting jobs, every day there are Fidesz politicians revealed who are guilty of double dipping, we have a Media Authority made up entirely of Fidesz apparatchiks, the public media reminds the few viewers it has left of nothing more than Hungarian Communist media in the fifties, Fidesz supporting printed media, such as Magyar Hírlap (a worthy successor to the Nazis' Der Stürmer) and Echo TV are chockablock full of incitement against Jews, Romas, anyone and everyone not on their side, compulsory schooling is to be reduced to 15 (if they get away with it), and according to consistent polls 48% of eligible voters despair, don't know who they can vote for, since they have had it up to the eyeballs with both a corrupt MSZP and an equally corrupt and on top of it completely antidemocratic Fidesz. Finally, about the myth of the 2/3. It is a fact that, due to the peculiarity of the Hungarian dual representation voting system Fidesz has 2/3 of the MPs. It is, however, also a fact, that in the actual elections they only received 52.73% of the vote, which is a long way from 2/3rds. Fidesz had a total of 2,706,292 citizens vote for them, out of a total pool of eligible voters numbering almost 8 million. Its another illustration of the despair of ordinary, decent people in this country, that only 46.6% of those eligible bothered to cast a vote in Round 2. So of the total eligible voting pool only around 34% bothered to cast a vote for Fidesz. Now, however, many tens of thousands are on the streets demonstrating against the megalomania enveloping our poor nation and country. So, to sum up, Mr Fischer should stick with the facts, if he wants to be considered more than just a cheap and dishonorable propagandist. If he wants to indulge in fiction, let him write another book.

I agree with the writing. It is incredible, how the former communist could survive as a kind of social class, in spite of that they are very corrupt and completely unable to govern. Nevertheless they have incredible connections abroad. They make up a different story (extreme-right, power hungry, anti-semitic, Jewish, Roma, etc.) for each audience. With the technique, you could argue that France is a dictatorship, that in Spain there is Francoism, etc. To understand, what the word "communist" means you should have lived here and see how the children of people who had some job idoing political propaganda in 1970 get to the TV or typically to places, where performance is highly subjective. (E.g., they do not become engineer or physicists.) And the story goes on. Concerning human rights issues: human rights violations were typical of the Gyurcsany era. Large number of _uninvolved_ people (i.e., not even protesting) were beaten up or became crippled in 2006. They even shot an MP from 1 m on the head with gumi bullets (he got unconscious.) There were hundreds of cases like this. Somehow, nobody protested that a government was shooting its own citizens ..

Eva S Balogh is a hateful communist, who pays by the Socialist Party. At worst, he only wants to discredit Hungary. Here he is, caught the attention of the comrades.

It is very accurate, in-depth analysis. Shame on Europe that was determined by the communists thought. Europe, wake up! Not only a tragedy of the Holocaust was the only on this continent. We lived our life in a communist dictatorship, where 100 million people have been killed because of thinking. And now you make friends with these murderers and attack the democratically elected Hungarian government. Shame, shame, shame!