We all know at least one – the bloke who, having necked a couple of pints suddenly changes, in the blink of an eye, into someone you wished you didn’t know in the slightest.
One minute all sun and fun enjoying the effects of the giggle-juice he’s imbibed, the next a fully-charged aggressive thug. Lazily, but determinedly looking for a fight.
In parliament, apparently unable to distinguish between the nation’s seat of power and a run-down, spit and sawdust pub, Fletó, filled to the brim with Dutch courage, stood up unsteadily, and wobbled his way through a speech of sorts.
Although it’s true that the vast majority of what passes for the Hungarian opposition have regularly demonstrated a patent lack of respect for their place of work, this performance from Fletó did deliver a new low. Whereas typically the opposition members of parliament confuse the legislative chamber with a kindergarten or nursery and behave accordingly, this time Fletó appeared to have completely lost the plot. Both the content of his speech and the style of delivery suggested that he is, truly, away with the fairies. His demeanour differed from that which we have come to expect from the childish behaviour of the opposition. This was different, this was a man who could no longer tell the difference between a place where people go to get pissed and a place where MPs assemble to discuss and decide on the affairs of the nation.
His body language, an ever-more reliable and obvious barometer of his state of mental excitement, spoke volumes.
This is a man who is not himself. Or if he is himself, then he’d be better-off trying to be someone else.
Always slow to warm to an audience, Fletó then chose to offer us all a glimpse of the skeletons in his family’s cupboard. Afternoon cups of tea were spat and spilt over living rooms the length and breadth of the country as Fletó laid bare his family’s darkest secrets...
Obviously Hungarian parliamentarians of all parties have long known of this...in the video there’s not even a flicker of reaction from any of them! Then again, perhaps parliamentarians retreat into internal meditation when Fletó stands to address, having learnt over the years that it’s the best method to ensure that their minds are left unsullied by Fletó’s lunacy. A third option, of course, is that people merely noticed that the apple didn’t fall far from the tree. He may not yet have experienced life behind bars, but with his orders to attack unarmed civilians in 2006, Gyurcsány Jnr certainly outdid his father in terms of villainy.
No matter what the explanation, nothing stops Fletó’s train crash from developing before our eyes. Alternatively leaning and swaying, he introduced his intended topic of conversation via a whirlwind trip through the labyrinth that his thoughts are required to travel if they ever seek daylight:
“I’d like to tell you something. Something which you will make a scandal out of, and I suspect that...in the next few weeks, you’re going to jump on me...while I was thinking just now here what I should tell you, I decided, to myself, that I should tell you.”
With government MPs now casting their eyes to not the heavens, but the clock which indicates how much time he’s got left to witter on, Fletó sensed a disturbance in the force, and descended further into cabaret, leadenly orbiting to his left to instruct those tiring of his rambling to:
“Settle down, colleagues, settle down...”
With the intriguing revelations about his father’s chequered past, however, Gyurcsány had a plan. His introduction of the topic of prison life was to serve as a crow bar with which he could jemmy open the government. Starting as is his wont, as a lone horseman seen at a far distance on the horizon, he creeps ever closer, moving in ever-decreasing circles, until such time that he is ready to attack. We’ve seen this tactic enough times to recognise it instantly, and we all know what’s coming: somehow his motion is connected to the self-winding mechanism in his mind, an idiosyncratic fact which leads to a singular result. As Gyurcsány moves ever closer to his target, the springs inside his mind are wound ever-more tightly until he reaches the stage where either he lets rip, or risks mortal damage from the explosion of energy only just bottled up in the springs of his mind.
Reminding all and sundry that his father was jailed a number of times for his “misdemeanours,” Fletó then started to build towards his climax. He presented the idea of a government being responsible for the nation as a revelatory concept. Of course, given his own attitude to the relationship between deeds and outcomes in government, this is barely a surprise. And now we’re nearing the nub: Fletó determined that the incumbent government’s responsibility extends as far as to cover the deaths of Hungarians which can be attributed to the current pandemic.
Taking a left-hand bend at an alarming speed, Fletó flew off the asphalt and ended up coming a cropper in a ditch of compassionate thought, lamenting the dearly departed, and laying the blame for the deaths of these parents and children, people who “will be missed”, firmly at the government’s door.
Returning to the Crime and Punishment chapter that he’s apparently writing about his own father, Fletó lays down what the charge will be: Professional misconduct resulting in reckless endangerment.
Swinging cerebrally from vine to vine, leaving nothing but confusion in his wake, Fletó harangued the government for speaking about how well Hungary is doing as regards vaccination rates, before immediately stating that he thinks that we’re doing well.
This, let nobody forget, from a man who incited opposition supporters to reject the vaccinations that he now thinks are a great idea. This is the man who lost party members to the coronavirus that would have been saved by the vaccinations that he organised the rejection of. This is insanity, pure and simple.
Warmed up to something akin to molten lava, Fletó closes in for what one presumes he sees as a coup de grâce. Buoyed, no doubt, by the comforting feeling that Gergely Arató, one of the least useful men to stride the globe, has started to rock in rhythm as his master’s voice rises, Fletó reaches full stride. Referring to those who have died as a result of the government’s inaction as regards lockdown (the one which has been in effect from November last year, we presume), Fletó stated that “YOU killed these people,” before once again calming down to express thanks to God that so many people, as the government keep reminding us, have been vaccinated. It’s a bloody rollercoaster of a ride, this one! But all rides have to end, as is the case here. Clawing logic back into his diseased cerebellum once more, Fletó asserted that his father was locked up for crimes related to a few thousand forints. According to Fletó, in Hungary today, people are locked up for far lesser crimes than those that he accuses the government of. And with that we’re into the final straight. Confidence in his own abilities now fizzing over his leaking brain, he entered the code for his own nuclear football:
“You lot contributed to the deaths of hundreds and so you lot will be held responsible!”.
Nuclear key code entered; he dropped the bomb:
“And we’re going to hold you accountable! Do you know when? When we win. And do you know when we’re going to win? Next year! And for you lot there will be no mercy! Let me just say this: Good bye!”
Off his rocker, completely off his rocker. A man like this who aims for political success can only hope to garner the votes of the mentally unbalanced.
And speaking of responsibility, what of the people whose lives were ruined by the laissez-faire attitude of the socialist/liberal governments that decided not to help as the financial crisis of 2008 deepened? What of the people whose eyes were shot out by the least humane members of the Hungarian police in 2006? And, more recently, what of the people who lost friends and relatives as a result of the Fletó-led campaign that urged people to reject the only vaccine that would save their lives?
