We could not let the Szőlő affair pass

[Deputy Prime Minister] Zsolt Semjén was right that he did not allow the Szőlő utca affair to pass as it was an attack on the government's capacity for action, "a well-built attempt to topple the government, with an element of foreign secret service involvement," Prime Minister Viktor Orbán said on the Monday edition of the online programme 'Fighters' Hour'.

In this instance, the attack targeted not Zsolt Semjén or one member or another of the government; they wanted this blood libel against us to stick, which half the country can then rebel against - rightly so - and with which the government can be weakened, paralysed, or even toppled, Mr Orbán pointed out.

He observed that on this issue the government had launched a counter-attack. He said there are regular attacks with fake news, besmirching the honour of individuals, and he usually lets these pass, but this time he accepted Mr Semjén's argument that "this is a blood libel" and they cannot let it pass.

Mr Orbán said he accepted Mr Semjén's position because "members of the government were accused of the gravest possible crime," and if any one of them committed such a crime, "then the entire government must go."

Mr Semjén "was right that this is a blood libel, and we cannot let a blood libel pass as if we hadn't even heard it," and it transpired during the investigation of the case that "the whole affair is a well-built attempt to topple the government, with an element of foreign secret service involvement," the Prime Minister said.

He added: in this case, we must defend not only our honour, but also the government and the state's capacity for action. Mr Orbán said "grave findings and grave consequences can be expected" in the case.

The government parties have never accused anyone of the commission of such a grave crime, "the liberals are distorting the truth" when they claim otherwise. One politician or another may have said something about a politician or party, but he does not remember anyone having been accused of the gravest crime, he laid down.

Mr Orbán observed that he could provide a long list of the smear campaigns launched against him and his family, but he had let them pass. However, the Szőlő utca affair is another matter. Here, there will be very grave consequences, "there will be no mercy" because two members of the government in office were accused of the gravest crime, he stated.

The Prime Minister said it is clear who started spreading the rumours, how they were embraced by one media outlet after another, when they reached the point of naming individuals, and how leading opposition politicians, from Péter Magyar to Klára Dobrev, joined the smear campaign. They are upholding these accusations to this day, meaning that these politicians are committing crimes every day, he pointed out, indicating that it does not seem like they are not guided and instructed by someone from outside.

Those who joined the spreading of the fake news about the Szőlő utca youth detention centre knew precisely that they were committing a crime which has and will have legal consequences, he pointed out.

Responding to a reader's comment, Mr Orbán stressed: the moment any abuse against any child is revealed, the authorities take the necessary steps immediately.

There is an effective, well-functioning child protection system. This is a difficult world and is not without faults, but many thousands of people work hard in this system, dedicating their all to the cause, honest, decent people who agree to do the most difficult job in the world. "There is sometimes a rotten apple among them," but we immediately throw it out, he laid down.

Mr Orbán described independent Member of Parliament Ákos Hadházy as a clown. "A half-witted man" who deserves pity more than anything else, and he does not regard him as a political actor, the Prime Minister said. The entertainment industry and politics have grown together. "On one side, there are actors wanting to play politics, and on the other, politicians who have gone mad, they meet in the middle, and that is today's opposition camp," he added.

Mr Orbán also said the police must be given assistance, laws must be made clearer so that they can act more confidently in certain sensitive cases which are difficult to construe from a legal point of view. He took the view that in certain types of cases, the police "do more lawyering than police work" which - in his opinion - is not right. The Interior Minister said in response to this - and he may well be right - that the laws are not clear enough, "in which case we must make them clearer," he stated.

In response to footage shown on the programme - in which President of the Tisza Party Péter Magyar says 'we need neither self-assassination attempts, Prime Minister, nor feigned outside attacks,' Mr Orbán said these words came from a man who recorded his conversation with his own wife and then used the recordings against her in a court case; a man who converses with a cardboard cut-out.

The Prime Minister said in continuation that Mihály Károlyi, who was also half-witted and destroyed the country, was sent by the French. Later, Szálasi was helped into power by the Germans, Rákosi, who was also dull-witted, was sent by the Soviets, while now Brussels is behind Péter Magyar. Somehow, most of the people acting here on foreign orders are half-witted fools, he said, adding that they can sometimes carry an air of seriousness, and that tends to land the country in enormous trouble.

In Tisza, it is not just their leader. There is a candidate for minister of culture who wrote a book entitled 'Sleeping Beauty Barry,' another one "called Tarr" says that they will only tell the people what they want to do after the elections, and there is "a general who has gone insane with vanity" who attends rallies carrying a gun, Mr Orbán listed, adding that András Kármán is a good technocrat banker whom he fired from the government sometime in 2011 because he said that being involved an in unorthodox economic policy and us sending the International Monetary Fund packing would ruin his international reputation. These are all swept up by the wind and blown together into one place, the Prime Minister said.

We are at around seventy per cent in making Hungary great, Mr Orbán stated.

He said in the past fifteen years, a great many things have happened, but not enough; many more things will have yet to happen in order to make the country great from the point where we inherited it; meaning that after Gyurcsány's eight years we will need a few more years, the Prime Minister added.

Speaking about the strengthening of the civic side's presence on the Internet and the movement of digital civic circles, the Prime Minster said "we are in better shape because many have realised that without this it won't work."

He stressed that the Right had an aversion to all things without a face; in the digital space, there tends to be more hiding, anonymity, trash talk, sneakiness and fake news.

If we go there, then we will also take our character there, and then we may also change the space itself, he said about the digital conquest, stating that the goal is to ensure that qualities that characterise the Right are also present in the digital space, such as taking a firm stance, being straightforward and honest, stating our opinion with our name, and showing our faces.

Mr Orbán observed that it was a problem of modern politics that it had become mixed up with the entertainment industry. The reason being that the Internet requires brief, prompt, immediate reactions, a sensationalist mode of operation, and this "positively favours 'eccentric' personalities."

Half-witted, empty-headed politicians with an unreliable character and failed, rejected politicians who then entered some artistic career now combine forces, he pointed out, mentioning the domestic opposition as an example. He added that it took a huge effort on the part of the civic side to maintain a presence on the Internet, whilst preserving their solemnity, even if they might seem more boring as a result.

Regarding the Tisza Party's plans about the introduction of a property tax, Mr Orbán said what Tisza is talking about is a new tax authority wealth control bureaucracy which will invade the privacy of people's lives.

The Prime Minister recommended caution in the event of the introduction of any new type of tax, pointing out that one should consider not only the increase of one tax or another, but also the resulting many consequences. Taxes are sensitive things because it is in the form of taxes that the state can invade the people's privacy, "that's what the communists did, and so I would recommend caution," the Prime Minister pointed out.

He said the application of low tax rates constitutes the basis of his government's philosophy, but they collect taxes from everyone, there are no excuses. However, once they have done, they leave the people alone.

Mr Orbán stressed that in order to levy a property tax, the authorities had to find out how much wealth each individual had, who came under the effect of the regulation, they were required to keep a register of bank accounts, movable and immovable property, arable land and other assets, in the case of businesses, of their worth, and then all this information would have to be regularly checked.

There was already something like this during Gyurcsány's time in government, Hungary already went through this once before, and everyone hated it, the Prime Minister stated.

In a video played on the programme, someone described the upcoming personal income tax exemption of mothers with two children as "insane." In response, the Prime Minister said the person in the video does not like people, does not like it if they have money, does not like it if mothers with children do not pay income tax, and as he has no arguments, he dismisses the concept as insane. "Why is it an insane idea that we want to make the economic burden of raising children lighter?" the Prime Minister raised the question.

Mr Orbán said those who do not have children bear a lesser financial burden, while those who do are helped with tax exemption so that they do not find themselves at a financial disadvantage as a result.

Regarding the drone affair, the Prime Minister made it clear that Ukraine's hinterland is safe, no one attacks them from here, and he has no information about the Poles, the Romanians, the Hungarians, the Slovaks or the Bulgarians wanting to attack them. "So, the whole thing is fake, it has no significance whatsoever," he concluded.

He pointed out that while Ukraine and Hungary disagreed on a great many things, they were not each other's enemies. The West supports them, and Ukraine should not behave as if it were a sovereign country, he observed.

Regarding the recent Russian drones violating the airspace of western countries and the responses given to them, the Prime Minister said he is baffled, indicating that people in Western Europe pretend to be in danger, but meanwhile, Western Europe's combined total economic performance, military expenditures and population are not comparable with those of Russia.

"We are stronger in every dimension, and I never understand why - if we are stronger - we speak as if we were weak. Russia cannot cause us any harm," Mr Orbán stated.

In answer to the question of whether we would be able to neutralise Russian drones should they enter Hungarian airspace accidentally or intentionally, Mr Orbán said "as far as we know, we would be. We're not concerned about this, we'll shoot them down."

Regarding Hungary's crude oil and natural gas supply, the Prime Minister highlighted that there was a safe supply of gas and oil from Russia, while all other sources are less stable and more expensive than Russian supplies reserved with long-term contracts.

The Prime Minister stressed that the security of Hungary's natural gas and crude oil supply was guaranteed from the direction of Russia, and "a normal person" does not abandon something safe for something uncertain.

He also said the energy coming from Russia has a fixed price which is cheaper than if Hungary bought energy from elsewhere. If we buy oil and gas more expensively, then we can only sell it to the people more expensively, too, he pointed out.

Mr Orbán expressed bafflement and described those who are happy that allegedly there will be measures that will harm Hungary as malevolent. There are fools and there are traitors, he said. "When we go out onto the football pitch […] and a Hungarians supports not the Hungarian team, but its opponent, what do you call that?" he asked.

Regarding his telephone conversation with US President Donald Trump, he said the US President asked him why Hungary buys gas and oil from Russia. "I told him […] and he said he understood, full stop." He added that we were not each other's subordinates. It is not that someone tells us from Washington what to do, and then we will do it. "There are two sovereign states, they have sovereign leaders, and if there is something where we are interested in each other's affairs, we ask each other," Mr Orbán pointed out.

He indicated that the US President also consulted him about the war from time to time, and he told him that this war had already been decided, the Russians had won it. The question is when and who will come to an agreement with the Russians: will there be a US-Russian agreement, or will the Europeans, too, finally be prepared to engage in talks and will there also be European-Russian talks?

This war cannot be won on the frontline. All military experts say, including the Americans' best military experts, that Ukraine can only win this war if fighting troops in the hundreds of thousands are sent to the frontline from Western Europe or America, but this would lead to a world war which no one wants.

The Prime Minister pointed out that the West was not fighting against the Russians, but did not want to be left out of the partition of Ukraine.

The Russians have taken 20 per cent of Ukraine away, and people in the West believe that they have a right to take the rest away. "This is a proper imperialist war, except they don't call it that," he stated.

"Quite simply, the West doesn't want to be left out of laying their hands on a slice of a country that can be partitioned, hence the whole war […], the sacking of the poor Ukrainians is behind the whole thing which they present as if they were defending Ukraine," Mr Orbán said.

Regarding the upcoming elections in the Czech Republic, Mr Orbán said he is following events because he would like to learn. The world is changing much and fast, each campaign is a major lesson. Some parties campaign better than others, while the Prime Minister believes that from a campaign point of view, Andrej Babis is a better candidate than himself. "He's a much more flamboyant figure than I am," Mr Orbán said, adding that his videos glue him, too, to the screen.