Several weeks after the general election in April, Hungarian prime minister Ferenc Gyurcsany said this at a closed meeting with members of his parliamentary faction: I almost died when I had to pretend for one and a half years as if we were governing. Instead we lied in the morning, we lied in the evening. I am through with this. We either do it and then you've got your man, or you pick someone else. A tape with Gyurcsany's speech – which contains a fair amount of obscenities – was leaked to the media this past Sunday; excerpts were broadcast on state radio; Gyurcsany, a blogger-politician, posted the Hungarian-language transcript on his blog. On Monday night, thousands of demonstrators gathered by the parliament to demand Gyurcsany's resignation; the non-violent rally turned into a riot when some of them later moved to the state TV (MTV) building and broke through police lines. Henrik of Hungarian Accent explains why the protesters chose to storm the TV building: […] this is an iconic factor dating back to the revolutions of 1956. Ironically enough, even the state TV used this factor a few months ago in its marketing campaign: “If there would be a revolution which TV station would You want to take over?”. I’m sure this was not the answer they were hoping to get. Henrik also sums up some of the Hungarian bloggers’ reactions (links in Hungarian): En1 writes that if the Prime Minister were a responsible leader, he would step forward and announce his resignation, because for this matter he is the only responsible. Korbely’s opinion is that these violent mob actions should not be confused with a revolution. Instead these are illegitimate actions for any cause and are much similar to a violent soccer-fan-war than a revolution. […] There are opinions about the media coverage also, especially about an opposition-party-close news TV called HirTV. Kond is worried about freedom of press. Because HirTV has been banned from the covering. Especially as CNN and BBC has also used their previous coverage about the siege, so they should be treated with respect in protection of freedom of press. On the other side Bakura writes that the siege coverage of HirTV was in his opinion disgusting as the coverage were cheering for the mob. Henrik himself hopes for a quick and peaceful resolution of the conflict: Not long after I started this blog I wrote that it is not easy to chose topics which could be really interesting to an outsider about Hungary. These past weeks have proven me wrong. And I think I’m not very happy about it. […] Still as I write these lines according to news there are more people on the streets and police forces are on a much higher readiness state. God help us to get over this crises soon, without any further extension of violence. Though in Budapest, Paul of Further Ramblings of a N.Irish Magyar watched the events unfold on TV – just as Henrik did: […] From what I could see, the first initial outburst of violence was one blond-haired individual walking directly up to the police lines and clobbering the riot shields with a piece of wood. Again, for some unknown reason, the police didn't just give him a quick kick in the unmentionables and drag him off to the cop shop, but stood back and took his abuse. Stones and rocks then started flying and the more “respectable” (and the HIR TV reporter) protesters started to move away from the front of the building. At this stage, if I'd been a genuine blogger, I'd have hopped in the first available taxi and started blogging realtime at the square. But my armchair, HIR TV and another glass of Jamesons were more appealing, sorry! […] The main core of rioters last night did not look like the normal right-wing Hungarian political activist (middle-aged, respectable, middle-class, long twirly moustache), more like people who'd taken a night off from bashing heads for Fradi, for a different kind of recreational hooliganism. The police regrouped and at about 12.15 there were signs of other police reinforcements being brought into the square and things once again seemed to calm down…so I went to er…bed. And missed the eventual invasion of MTV at 1.30am. […] For the prime minister, Paul has a recommendation: Gyurcsany to date (and to my knowledge) has not apologised for lying during the last government. If he is serious about dragging the socialists and Hungarian politics into a new era of integrity and honesty, that's the least he can do. Budapest-based Pestiside.hu had a regular contributor on the scene, who later posted this “assessment of how the various participants performed, on a one-to-ten scale”: Pathetic in their “defense” of MTV headquarters. Never looked confident or organised and failed to take advantage of their superior firepower.