Poles should have been restricted entry, says Cameron

I am just back from the old home town, and London – with all the ‘New Londoners’ - is changing fast, just as the UK Conservative opposition are putting immigration top of the UK’s ‘political’ agenda: even though immigration per se is far from ‘the problem’.

What’s always been a cosmopolitan capital now positively teems with ‘diversity’. Londoners have never been as good looking, slimmer and better dressed. That’s because every other person you pass on the street is new to town.

It’s great. What I always have loved about London is its ethnic kaleidoscope.

And yet, the lack of preparation, and imagination, when opening up the labour market to Poles etc, has also opened a door to anti-immigration sentiment in the UK.

David Cameron, (photo above), the Tony Blair clone leader of the Conservative Party, has decided on a two track strategy: appeal to the liberal middle class with lots of tree hugging environmental policies – the modern British political equivalent of kissing babies at election time (why kiss a baby when you can hug a tree?) But at the same time don’t forget about the old conservative anti-immigration sentiment to prop up the electoral base.

The government hasn’t helped by admitting that their records on the amount of immigration have been completely wrong.

David Cameron exploited this on the BBC this morning by saying:

"Immigrants make a huge contribution to the British economy, but there are pressures from unlimited immigration on hospitals and schools. There are benefits in having immigration, but in having it controlled.... They should have done it with countries like Poland."

The lack of resources is not in dispute, neither is the lack of readiness for so many Poles and others arriving, post accession: the transport systems creeks, the education system struggles, the lack of cheap housing is exposed.

Beware weird alliance of new Malthusians

And yet, there is a consensus growing in Britain against the very idea of immigration and the free flow of people. And it’s not just coming from the usual suspects among the ‘Little England’, Daily Mail reading, xenophobes.

Environmentalists like the Optimum Population Trust – with its esteemed membership of Sir David Attenborough and others – have the same basic fear of immigration.

They think that Britain’s green and pleasant land can not 'sustain' so many humans and we should find ways to reduce population.

A consensus on the dangers of too many people is developing in Britain, ignoring the fact that immigrants are not just ‘consumers’ of resources but creators of them, too.

The new prime minister, Gordon Brown, has vowed to make sure there are ‘new British jobs for British workers’, even though unemployment is very low in Britain among potential ‘British workers’. So the anti-immigration card is going to be frequently played in the next couple of years by all parties, instead of realizing that immigration is a good thing, but a lack of resources and planning for when it happens, is not.

And to think that UK politicians most often campaign these days on their alleged ‘competence’. Or not.

Plans for Islamic cultural centre in Krakow

The usual suspects, on both sides, were at a meeting last Wednesday at Krakow’s Jagiellonian University to discuss the possibility of building an Islamic Centre, complete with prayer room, in one of Poland’s most Catholic of cities.

The Al-Fan Islamic Cultural Centre is the idea of a Krakow based artist of Albanian descent, Rahim Blak, based on plans drew up by architect Stanisław Deńko.

Someone I know who was at the meeting said proceedings started with an Imam chanting prayers as Blak theatrically drew off the cloth covering a scale model of the building, which the organizers want to build in the Zwierzyniec disctict in the heart of the old town.

Apparently, Rahim Blak said that around 500 Muslims, from 300 families, live in Krakow but the city didn’t want have a mosque. There are only around 200 Jews living in the city, on the other hand, he said, but they have a place to pray. Hmm.

The local media has been full of the usual scary type coverage, of a ‘Mosque to be built under the shadow of Wawel Castle...eeek!’ and raising fears that Krakow would turn into the new Afghanistan, and be inundated with al-Qaeda wannabe weird-beard extremists training for the Jihad and then running into the old Market Square to blow themselves up.

I am told that locals at the meeting were acting like the typical NIMBY, and saying that the cultural centre should not be built in the centre of town, but maybe on the other side of the river (and far away from built up areas, one presumes). Others couldn't understand why they were picking on Krakow to build the place in the first place.

I think it was a mistake by the originator of the idea to bring the number of Jews in Krakow into the argument – that is simply playing the multicultural numbers game – but there is already a beautiful Japanese cultural centre and museum housed on the banks of the River Wisla, so why not an Islamic Centre?

Could be good for tourism? Maybe?

And anyway, one of the symbols of Krakow is the Lajkonik - and you can’t get more Islamic than that.

More?
Don’t you think the CIA’s new logo to publicize its ‘war against terror’ - Terrorist Buster - resembles a popular 1980s movie? Are they serious?

Even more?
Mosque to be built in Krakow, thenews.pl, Oct 24

The descent of (Ro)man II

Roman Giertych, former education minister and ex-vice PM, is retiring from politics. I don’t know whether to laugh or cry (photo: Roman with what's left of his electorate).

His party, the League of Polish Families, only got a miserable 1.3 percent in Sunday’s election. Will this mean the end of Poland’s curator of 1930s style nationalist politics? Does this mean the end of his type of nationalist politics?

He is going back to his old job and setting up a law firm in Warsaw. Journalists, he said, will ‘get a 20 percent discount.’ Which is nice.

Looking back at all the posts I have devoted to this guy, I don’t know where to start summing up the year and half he has been in Poland’s government.

So I’ll just content myself with reliving a few of his choices quotes and moments.

How about when he drew up a new school reading list – the latest wheeze to come out of the Roman Giertych Education Think Tank (subtle as a ‘tank’, very little ‘think’).

Off the reading list went Gombrowicz, Witkacy, Conrad, Kafka, Goethe, Dostoyevsky...and on the list, lots of books about JP II.

And then there was the assault on evolution (see Descent of (Ro)man).

Or how about his contribution to the Polish language, with the popularizing of the term Homoagitacja – homo-agitation?

He was a little obsessed about gays, was our Roman.

‘The propaganda of homosexuality is reaching ever younger children. In some countries it is even forbidden for children in hospital to talk or read about mommy and daddy, because this allegedly violates minority rights.”

Or how about Roman’s chief henchman, Wojciech Wierzejski, who after recommending that gays should be bludgeoned if they took to the streets of Warsaw, had some deep insights about homosexuality, with which he would like to share:

“Every police officer will confirm that homosexuals are a circle that is nearly 100% identical to the circle of pedophiles. It is a fact that does not require any research.”

What a charmer!

Or remember when Giertych, as education minister, took over the organization of exchange visits of Polish and ...Israeli school kids? Tel Aviv was not pleased.

The Israeli press repeated the well rehearsed view that Giertych was...well...you know...not really the right person get involved in Polish-Israeli relations.

But President Lech Kaczynski felt he had to defend Roman when on a trip to Israel.

"Giertych is not anti-Semitic, He only grew up in an anti-Semitic tradition. He is the son and grandson of Polish politicians. But recently he has undergone a change [spooky!]. Today he is certainly not anti-Semitic. There is no problem with him. The problem lies in the extremist elements in his party."

Um...

But Giertych is amazingly sensitive on this subject. He took the massive step – for him, anyway – of visiting the memorial to the Jedwabne pogrom. In his political tradition this was akin to treason.

On communists? Well, he had quite strong views on the subject.

We must go forward and chop, it's a knife fight! Otherwise we'll lose. If we stop, they will take everything from us. The tradition of bloodshed stands beside us. This is something different from the styrofoam tradition, of those who supposedly fought communism, those from the Workers' Defense Committee and other Trotskyites!

Is his demise the demise of his ‘movement’?

Is there Life After Giertych?

Now that he has stood down as leader of his party, does this make them the League of One Parent Families?

And who am I gonna write about for the next two years?

Still, I can console myself that his even more nutty dad, Maciej, still lurks in the endless corridors of Brussels.

More?

I have just seen that henchman Wierzejski will be the self styled 'face' of the 'New Endecja' - so League look set to remain bunkered down in the nationalist 1930s.

How Kaczynski blew it

Two weeks before polling day Jaroslaw Kaczynski was ahead in most opinion polls and looked like pulling off a miracle victory. And then it all went horribly wrong. What’s worse, it’s all his own fault.

I bet when Jaroslaw went home election night he gave the cat a good kicking. Not that the cat had anything to do with the conservative’s thumping by Polish voters. Kaczynski has nobody to blame but himself.

The crucial moment of the campaign came in the head-to-head debate with the eventual winner, Donald Tusk. Immediately after the broadcast many on this blog saw it as a significant gaff by the prime minister, and a good performance by his challenger. Mike Farris said it was the ‘political performance of Tusk’s life,’ and the first time he looked like he had the balls for a fight.

Maybe. But though Tusk looked better, he got lucky: throughout the debate Kaczynski looked like he couldn’t care less.

On Polish Radio this morning he admitted that it was a crucial turning point and he maybe he should have avoided the whole thing altogether. British prime ministers would have warned him – debates are there for sitting PMs to lose – challengers usually get the upper hand as they have no record to defend and so cannot look to be on the defensive. Kaczynski spent the whole debate on the back foot.

But it finally gave Tusk some momentum and he took advantage of the gift Kaczynski had given him.

While liberals think that Kaczynski’s arch-conservative politics was the ultimate reason for the government’s downfall, many conservatives are claiming that he failed because he was not conservative enough!

For instance, columnist Paweł Milcarek told Polish Radio:

'The problem was that [Law and Justice] broke a kind of an agreement with conservative opinion. The so-called Fourth Republic was supposed to be built upon the values of ‘Civilization of Life’.

However, it turned out that when it came to the protection of life, pornography laws or coherent pro-family policy, Law and Justice contradicted its pre-election promises.

The second thing was that they tried to replace a real reform of the state with just the appearance of it. Conservative voters just have had enough.'

In other words, Law and Justice lost the election because they were too liberal.

But that argument just doesn’t work. More people voted Law and Justice in this election than in the ballot two years ago, which they subsequently won. So they mobilized more supporters this time around – problem for them was that Civic Platform mobilized even more of theirs.

Kaczynski also said this morning that he blames public television for his defeat. TVP ran a perfectly legitimate campaign to get young people out to the polling stations. In the last election only 40 percent bothered to vote at all, and the under 25 year olds were the most underrepresented back then.

The TVP ads said: ‘Get out to vote – go change Poland.’

Kaczynski said this morning on the radio: “The ‘go out to vote’ part was fine – but the ‘go change Poland’ thing was a clear suggestion that they should vote against the government.’

Try as he might, the blame for his defeat must lay with Jaroslaw himself and the boorish way he has spent two years in office. Blaming public media will not change that.

Warsaw prepares for a difficult cohabitation

Civic Platform (PO) have kicked Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski out of power – now they are getting ready to neuter his twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski.

Poland’s constitution and the relationship between parliament and the presidential palace is a bit of a mess. In 1989, when they were trying to work out what a democratic constitution would look like, they took bits from American and French systems, put them together and created...a dog’s dinner.

President Lech Kaczynski is not nearly as powerful as a George W Bush, or even Nicholas Sarkozy, but neither is he as powerless or as anonymous as ....well, who is the president of Ireland or Israel?

Those two are so weak that they virtually don’t exist – wheeled out at ceremonies to shake some hands, cut some ribbon, and then wheeled back to wherever they keep them for another day – like your best table cloth and cutlery.

Lech Kaczynski cannot make laws. He can’t appoint ministers (although Lech Walesa did). But what he can do is veto laws he doesn’t like.

He didn’t veto any of his brother’s laws, naturally, but you can imagine he was up all night last night, sharpening up his veto guillotine.

He could, theoretically, cause chaos for Donald Tusk and the new government. So Donald Tusk – probably the next prime minister – has a plan.

Euro battle ground
Civic Platform are determined to get Poland into the Euro Zone and adopt the Euro as the Polish currency as fast as they can. And they want to do it without having to have a referendum.

Lech Kaczynski, like his brother Jaroslaw, has indicated that before Poland gives up the zloty the country should have a ballot. So he would probably veto any parliament vote on the matter.

Civic Platform are talking of creating a permanent anti-veto coalition within parliament, with enough votes to overturn Lech’s veto.

Yesterday’s election has made things much easier for Platform. Kaczynski’s Law and Justice (PiS) is the only Eurosceptic party left in parliament, with just 166 members of parliament out of a possible 460.

But wouldn’t it be simpler to cut the powers of the president permanently, and turn Lech Kaczynski into a toothless Irish president, or an anonymous Israeli?

More?

Polish vote a warning to East Europe extremists, Reuters, Oct 22

Reformers are the winners, PJM, Oct 22

And the winner of Poland's election is...

A huge win for Civic Platform!

League of Polish Families and Self defense are out of parliament!

Civic Platform – 44.2 percent
Law and Justice – 31.3
Left and Democrats – 12.2
Polish Peasants Party – 7.9
LPR (League of Polish Right) – 1.6
Self defense – 1.4

Others (do the math)

Turn out – well over 55 percent.

The significant figure is the one for the Peasants Party, as they will now probably form a coalition with Civic Platform.

These are opinion poll results – official results out Monday or Tuesday. All we know for certain is that the German minority will have two seats in the Polish parliament, because they always do.

Any party under 5 percent will not be drawing a salary from tax payers and will not get a nice little seat in the Polish parliament.

But turnout has been good, although this can have some bad consequences.

the beatroot has been told (see comments on previous post) that one polling station in north Warsaw - election office 784 ul Staffa Zoliborz - ran out of ballot papers in the afternoon, delaying voting for some while.

That story has been confirmed by the electoral commission, which says there were also shortages of ballot papers in the Ursynow district of Warsaw.

That was one of the farcical ‘incidents’ which prolonged the election day, first by 15 minutes, then 20, then 25, then 30 minutes and then finally by three hour.

Drowning sorrows, drowning ducks

There was certainly a movement to Civic Platform in the last few days – especially after the election debates, which, to my amazement, seem to have made a real difference to the result.

The Law and Justice election ‘celebration’ party is being held in Warsaw's Hyatt hotel, about 2 minutes walk from where I live. The lady in the newsagents across the road said journalists covering the PiS piss up were saying that the party henchmen and lawmakers have been waltzing around the hotel with their noses in the air, being obstructive to journos, and convinced they are going to win.

I suppose the PiS piss up has turned into a bit of a wake.

Live blog as it happened - Results at 8.30 pm, Polish time...

20.23: Actually, this is turning into a farce. They have now revized the time again - the fifth time today - and we will know exit poll results at 9 O'Clock, or even later. And to think that the government was outraged that the OSCE wanted to come and observe these elections!

20.48: Turnout 55 percent.

21.00: I don't believe it. Now the electoral commission has announced that there is something wrong in Gdansk, and they do not know when results can be announced.

But TVN24, in anticipation that the results were just about to be allowed to be released, showed a bar chart that had one of the parties significantly in the lead. Which one could that be, we wonder? Are we coming to the end of a mini-era?

And someone in Lepper's Self defense party earlier made a 'civil arrest' of a journalist, accusing him of breaking the 'election silence' law. The hapless journo has since been 'released'.

21.14: The electoral commission appear to be overwhelmed with what is a high turnout for Poland.

21.24: We are now told that 'election silence' will finally end at 22.55! What a mess. But turnout is now officially 55 percent.

21.24: The blog has had 2,000 visits today, already...everyone waiting for ...something.

Age seems to be a factor in who came out to vote. The over 60 age group voted least - 47 percent. And in big cities 74 percent voted - suggesting that in small towns and rural areas the tirnout was low. That is bad, VERY bad, for Law and Justice.

21.56: Apparently, many people in rural areas have...moved to Ireland! This has depleted the social base for parties dependant on these folk's vote. You can guess which parties...

22.00: Um....anyone know any jokes....or something. Maybe: "What do the Kaczynskis do on a tennis court? They play volleyball," ha, ha.

22.28: EVERYONE HAS LEFT THE AFTER ELECTION PARTY AT THE HYATT HOTEL AND GONE HOME !!! The hotel is just around the corner from where I live. Guess which party was having the 'celebration' party there? Law and Justice. I think someone has told them something.

Looks like a higher turnout

By 10.30 am over eight percent had voted in the election today – that’s two percent more than in the last election, two years ago.

Highest turnout has been in Krakow so far, with 16 percent already voted.
My girlfriend has just cast her ballot. It’s a gloriously sunny day today and she said that she had never seen a polling station so busy.

And in the US, around 80 percent of those registered voted. In Greenpoint, NY, 87 percent turned up.

But the polling stations will be closing 20 minutes later than planned as in two places, one in Plock and the other in Pila, opened late. It reminds me of one election a couple of years ago – can’t remember which one, where the polling officers got so rat arsed the night before, she failed to get up on time to open the polling station.

So exit poll results will now be at 20.20 CET. See ya then...

Idiot’s guide to Polish elections III – the ex-pat vote

Lots of Poles have fled their homeland since Poland joined the EU in 2004. Will their vote make a difference on election day, October 21?

No.

Who knows how many Poles are in the United Kingdom at the moment. Maybe a million have been there at some time or other during the last three years.

Polish politicians have woken up to a limited extent to the fact that this could be a new, valuable constituency – maybe there are some votes to be won.

And Polish politicians have shown some interest in the new Polish community in UK.

There was a debate broadcast on the recently launched Polskie Radio Londyn,net internet radio, aimed at ex-pat Poles in the UK.

All the major political parties were represented in the debate, though only the ex-communist Left and Democrats deemed the event worthy of enough by sending the high-profile Ryszard Kalysz to put their case (the fat bloke in the photo, second from the right).

By the October 16 deadline, 68,000 Poles had registered to vote in UK and Ireland. That’s maybe 7 percent or something of the potential vote.
Not really surprising. Ex-pats don't usually vote in elections back home. But who will those that do bother vote for?

An opinion poll by the Rzeczpospolita newspaper found:

Poles in the UK are most likely to vote for the Civic Platform party. 51% of Poles in the UK intend to vote for them. The Civic Platform's leader, Donald Tusk visited Britain recently for a series of meetings with immigrant groups. His popularity among immigrants might have increased as a result of his declarations that he would abolish double taxation rules which currently affect a large group of Poles working abroad.

Again, not a shock. The average age of ex-pat Poles in the UK is around 26, and the majority of young Poles generally indicate they will vote for Civic Platform on Sunday.

Worldwide, 170,00 Poles have registered.

Maybe the key to getting Poles back to Poland – and everyone agrees that might be a good idea – is linked to the result of this election. Young Poles are not amazed by their weird, conservative government and want a change.

So everyone – young Poles and Brits, Irish and everyone else – are involved in this election, even if they can’t, or won’t be voting.

I will be blogging (and working, unfortunately) from 20.00 CET on Sunday night when the exit poll results come in, if you would like to join me.

Opinion polls and political manipulation?

Since the debate between the prime minister and the main opposition party leader on Friday night, a handful of polls have shown a shift of support towards the Civic Platform party, led by Donald Tusk – all except one, that is.

The initial indicators of growing support over the weekend for the free market orientated Civic Platform were not convincing simply because they were those self selecting polls that people vote for on web sites or via telephone call to TV stations.

But two polls published this morning seem to reveal a genuine shift.

In a poll by OBOP in the "Dziennik" newspaper conducted a day after the Tusk – Kaczyński debate, Tusk’s party got a massive 46 per cent, which translates into 236 seats in parliament - five more than the minimum required to form a majority government.

I don’t find that poll believable at all.

Possibly the most believable is an opinion poll conducted by PBS, which indicates 38 per cent support for the Civic Platform (PO) and 37 per cent support for the Law and Justice (PiS). That means PO has gained five percentage points over the weekend, compared with a survey taken by the same pollster last week, while PiS lost one percent.

How much this has to do with Friday’s debate is unclear. According to a poll commissioned by the Rzeczpospolita newspaper, only 5 per cent of Poles say they changed their minds after the debate between Donald Tusk (PO) and Jarosław Kaczyński (PiS).

Whatever, there does seem to have been some movement away from the government in the last few days.

But one poll, slipped out yesterday by the Polish public television station TVP, bucked the trend – it showed the governing Law and Justice in the lead by four points – just as it was last week and the week before.

A closer look at the poll, however – and something that TVP did not mention (oops!) when they published the poll initially – was that the survey was taken before Friday’s debate. On the ninth and tenth, in fact. The poll was published on one of those 'tickers' running along the bottom of the screen, but you would think that the most important thing about that particular poll was, when it was taken.

Critics are also pointing out that PGB is Law and Justice’s favourite pollsters, as it usually gives leads to the Kaczynskis when no other company does so.

So, is there some manipulation going on here?

Well, you certainly could say that of state television, TVP. But the opinion pollster PGB has since recorded a similar wild shift since the debate, as well.

PGB was the only pollster to pick the winner of the Tusk - Kaczynski presidential election in 2005 - so the Kaczynski's must be a little concerned.

But I really can't see support shifting so hugely from one debate. Tusk will bounce, but not like a helium balloon.

But keep your eye on PGB, and close them when TVP election polling news comes on the TV - just in case.

Polish political TV debates are like game shows

Latest polls all over the place....(OCT 14) ....OBOP pollsters....Civic Platform 46%, Law and Justice 21%, Left and Democrats 11%.....(OCT 15)...PBS pollsters...Civic Platform 38%, Law and Justice 37%, Left Dem 18%.....PGB pollsters ...Law and Justice 36%, Civic Platform 30%, Left Dems 18% ......go figure......

If your idea of a televised debate during an election campaign between the two main protagonists is of the formal, stiff, American variety, then the Polish version will come as a bit of a shock.

The Tusk-Kaczynski TV debate game show tonight – that the media billed as the key moment in the election campaign, when government could be won or lost – was a bizarre sight. The set looked like a game show. The three different referees, with white teeth, taking turns over the three rounds looked like game show hosts. The audience whooped and applauded their man, and booed and heckled his opponent. It reminded me of that old classic – The Price is Right.

The rules of the game show were that each politician had one minute, or more often thirty seconds, to either give an answer or ask a question of his opponent. At the end of the allotted time, a gong would go off. Bong! Like the Gong Show.

But, of course, the combatants - Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski and leader of the largest opposition party, Donald Tusk – didn’t keep to the rules.

Instead of asking a question, they made a statement. When they ignored the gong going off, Bong!, after still not asking a question, the hapless referees - political journalists and one was the head of Polish Radio 3 - would bark, time and again: ‘Time for a question, time for a question..’, as the politicians droned on and on and on....

It was hilarious. Round One was on the economy – a bit predictable - but things started to get heated during Round Two – foreign policy.

Donald Tusk berates the Prime Minister for his Rottweiler style of diplomacy [cheers, boos,] Bong! Kaczynski infers that Tusk isn’t Polish, he’s German (he comes from Gdansk/Danzig) Boo ....Cheer....Bong!...and that if Tusk wins the election then he would lay down at the feet of Brussels, giving up all the vetoes and blocks that Kaczynski is trying to make sure stay in any new EU Reform/Constitution Treaty and [referee, ‘Time for a question, time for a question’]...Boo.....Hiss.....Cheer....Poland will consequently continue to be infected by ‘homosexualism and euthanasia’.....Boo....Hiss.....Cheer......Laugh.....Boo....Bong!

Audience: 'Don-ald Tusk, Don-ald Tusk....Ka-czyn-ski, Ka-czyn-ski....'

And so it went on. I watched open mouthed, waiting for a hook on the end of a long stick to emerge from the side of the stage and rap around one of their necks and haul them off the set.

Bong!

Who won? Eighty five percent of viewers of the private TVN 24 said it was a crushing win by Tusk - but they are Tusk voters. Thing is – it wasn’t a game show. Nobody walked off with the cuddly toy and the fortnight in Ibiza. Supporters of Kaczynski will think he won; supporters of Tusk will say he did.

As for the ‘floating voter’, torn widely by the charisma and verve of the two main players in the Polish election, I really don’t think they have learned anything about these characters that they didn’t, unfortunately, know already.

BBC should stand for Beatroots Beat Cretinous (er…journos)

I used to be a big supporter of the BBC – meaning I liked watching it. But it has got in all sorts of embarrassment recently, and all of its own making.

So this just takes the biscuit, as far as the beatroot blog is concerned. Here is top BBC reporter Mark Mardell claiming the Economist broke the story of the Daily Mail paying Poles to go around speeding and parking illegally in the UK.

He says the Economist have an ‘expose’, ‘based on a story by the beatroot blog’!

He even spells 'beatroot' incorrectly - beatrout!!!

The .....cheek. But very representative of many MSM journalists. If it is first published by the MSM then it is an ‘expose’. But when bloggers, ‘expose’ something it is called ‘a story in the beatroot blog’ (see his post half way down).

The little set up of the Daily Mail involved two or three different people here in Warsaw – they ‘exposed’ the Mail.

A journalist ‘exposes’ and a blogger has a ‘story’. Mardell is writing in the context of ‘journalistic ethics’. So where is the ‘ethics’ in misrepresenting the source and method of distribution of your story? .

EU tries to bridge the gap

This post was first published on the DLiberation blog, as part of the EU's Tomorrow's Europe project.

Is it recent eastern enlargement that is pushing a slightly disorientated and isolated Brussels into the arms of experiments with Deliberative consultation?

When Poland and the other ex-communist, central and eastern European countries signed up, the European Union got more heterogeneous overnight. And that means many more interests to cater for.

If the aim of Deliberative methods is to make it easier to transcend individual, local, sectional and national interests, then the job has got much harder in a 27 nation state club with wide economic and social differences between the new and old members.

The present Polish government certainly takes the idea of ‘national interest' seriously - it thinks it has the mandate to do so...read on at the Dliberation blog

Pole in running for Nobel Peace Prize

And looking at some of the competition, if she doesn’t win, then it’s time to bury this dumb, sad, annual ritual.

Twenty four years after Lech Walesa won it, 97 year-old Irena Sendlerowa – who is famous in Poland for protecting many, many Jewish children during the Nazi occupation of WW II - is on the long list of candidates this year for the Nobel Peace Prize.

The decision has been made today as to who the winner is, though the annoucment will be made Friday.

I don’t know whether this is just the Polish press bigging the story up, but Irena is one of the favourites this year.

So, who are her main rivals?

Well, one of the top tips is Al Gore. Remember him when he was the very dull candidate for President of the United States?

Since then he has gone from ‘Boring Al’ to ‘Extremely Interesting Al’ by way of a power point presentation he cooked up on his lap top, no doubt, about how we are all doomed unless we cut down our ‘carbon foot print’ and start knitting our own jumpers from rape seed and hemp.

But does he deserve a peace prize? Isn’t the Oscar he won more appropriate?

Another name on the list is …Bono.

Bono has been entered, one presumes, for his contribution to….world….um….use of wearing dark glasses in the evening? Or, maybe for wearing sun glasses at press conferences to push his latest/record/’I represent Africans’, pose?

So which one would you chose for a peace prize? Someone who had protected Jewish kids even under the penalty of death if found out by the Nazis? Or Al Gore or Bono?

It’s a no brainer.

Election debates and other spectator sports

With 12 days to go it is looking increasingly likely that the ruling Law and Justice will win the general election in Poland (see here, here, here). But can the opposition put the skids under PM Jaroslaw Kaczynski in the televised debates remaining? (the photo above is actually Lech Kaczynski and not Jarosalw, but what the hell...same difference...)

Eight million people watched the first TV debate last Monday – which in these days of multi channel TV and internet, is a televisual blockbuster.

Kaczynski will now likely debate leader of the Civic Platform on Friday evening and there will probably be a three way debate on Monday between Kaczynski, Tusk and the ‘face’ of the Left and Democrats campaign, former president Aleksander Kwasniewski.

That the Left and Democrats have to put Kwasniewski into the ring for them – someone who is not even standing for parliament – is a rather pathetic sign of what a race of pygmies they have become.

Fact is, he is still their biggest personality, and TV debates are all about personalities.

In Britain, where I am from, prime ministers don’t do debates – why run the risk of making yourself look an idiot? (Risk is not on the menu for UK politicians – look at the mess Gordon Iron Jaw Brown has got himself into: people are shocked by his lack of guts, ignoring the fact that Brown has a long history of bottling it.).

Usually, prime ministers can only lose debates, opposition politicians might just win one. In last Monday’s debate both candidates managed not to lose any support. The more Kwasniewski taunted Kaczynski that he was making his country a laughing stock abroad (and there is no doubt he has) the more Kaczynski’s supporters cheered him on – they want his confrontational stance in the European Union and elsewhere.

On Friday it is Kaczynski versus Tusk. Tusk, being from Civic Platform, will do what the Democrats do in the US – they will try and appeal to reason and give lots of little policy initiatives that they think their supporters want.

Kaczynski will continue to act like a US Republican: give them one big message – ‘Poland is ruled by corrupt liberals and ex-communists’.

Kaczynski seems to understand campaigning much better than Tusk, who is getting the reputation as being a bit of a wuss - a wish-washy dullard, who lacks the balls for a fight (a Polish version of the UK’s hapless leader, perhaps).

The coming TV debates are likely to emphasize these differences. Kaczynski is giving his supporters - those in rural areas, the old, the poor, the ones who lost out in the transition to capitalism - what they want. Tusk is frustrating his. We have had two years of the weirdest government I have ever seen. If Tusk and Kwasniewski haven’t been able to nail Law and Justice by now then they will not be able to do it - no matter how many TV debates they have - in the remaining couple of weeks.

Get ready for a Kaczynski win. The only thing really in doubt now is whether he will get a big enough majority to rule alone.

Daily Mail knows...

The Economist magazine told them.

I wondered how long it would take the Daily Mail to catch on to our accusations....

I imagine it is Edward Lucas from the Economist who writes on the magazine’s blog:

Wondering if the whole thing might be a misunderstanding, this blogger gave Ms Reid a quick telephone call. Ms Reid said she was the special investigations editor of the Daily Mail. She cheerfully confirmed that she had brought a Polish driver to Britain where he had driven through congestion charge areas without paying and parked illegally. Was this not paying someone to break the law, your blogger asked. "No, it's a civil offence," she replied. "We never did any speeding. We decided against it."

The story has not been published in the Daily Mail yet, as the newspaper was waiting to see if any tickets turned up in Poland, Ms Reid added. None had arrived yet.

It’s a civil offense. Oh. So on that basis, my post should have read:

“Daily Mail pay Poles to go and commit Civil Offenses.

There is a difference there. But not much, as far as yucky journalism goes.

Read more of the Economist blog post here, in which, I think, the gentleman blogger is telling off the Mail, but very gently.

British National Party confused

On their web site, the British National Party (BNP) has reproduced this blog’s article about the Daily Mail scam on Polish drivers avoiding traffic fines.

They copy text from another blog's post about my story:

The Beatroot writes on his blog how The Daily Mail, in its zeal to prove how ruinous has been recent immigration by new EU members like Poles, will go to any lengths – including giving people money to break the law - and staging evidence of lawbreaking for its "investigation".

They then print all of my post plus Richard’s concluding sentence, from a different blog.

But they are missing my point.

They are ignoring the obvious: my post was, indeed, about how low Daily Mail journalism has sunk – but also it was about how blaming immigrants for problems of the UK’s own making (which the Mail constantly does, and so does the BNP) is simply getting the causation of things a little confused.

It just shows that the BNP will pick up on any tiny tit bit to prove a case that was discredited around ... oh...1939 - 1945?

The Polish Ambassador, Blackwater and the Iraqi terrorists

The Polish Ambassador in Iraq, Gen. Edward Pietrzyk, was wounded today after two bombs exploded when he was being driven in Baghdad, outside of the ‘Green Zone’.

His driver – a member of the Polish government protection service – was killed in the attack and nearly a dozen others were hurt.

Poles have had just over 20 people killed so far in Iraq since they became part of the occupying forces there. So every death or injury is felt strongly here. There has never been a majority of public opinion for Poland’s involvement in Iraq and every incident is accompanied by calls for more troops to be withdrawn.

But government spokesman, Marek Kuchciński, made sure that Washington would never be disappointed in Poland. He said today:

“Such a decision would make the terrorists stronger and would let them expand their activity. No government should ever take even one step back in the battle with terrorists. “

But how did he know that the Polish Ambassador was attacked by ‘terrorists’?

Blackwater and Poles in Iraq

Minutes after the blast which injured the Ambassador, AP reported that:

U.S. Army and Iraqi troops sealed off al-Arasaat street where the attack took place. "Little Bird" helicopters, the type used by Blackwater USA, were seen flying above the bombing site, although it was not immediately known what role, if any, the North Carolina-based company has in providing security for the Polish diplomat. An unidentified wounded man [now thought to be the Polish diplomat] with bandaged head, leg and hands was seen walking toward one of the choppers…

U.S. authorities confiscated an AP Television News videotape that contained scenes of the wounded being evacuated. U.S. military spokesman Lt. Col. Scott Bleichwehl told the AP the government of Iraq had made it illegal to photograph or videotape the aftermath of bombings or other attacks.

I bet they have. Last week Blackwater was – briefly - prohibited from working in the country after an incident where they shot up Iraqi civilians. Blackwater are very unpopular in Iraq.

But the ban didn’t last long. It’s thought that pressure from Washington was put on the hapless Iraqi government to keep allowing these firms to operate.

Mercenary firms play an essential role in the occupation, and will be even more important in the future. As troop numbers are reduced for political reasons, they can still increase the number of Blackwater employees and the 30,000 other…well, ‘dogs of war’, is what they used to call them.

And it’s not just Americans who make up the Blackwater workforce. Ex-army Poles have been working for Blackwater in Iraq. In 2004, two former Polish GROM officers (the Polish equivalent of the SAS) were killed after an attack by, the now dead, Abu Musab al-Zarkawi and his al-Qaeda type gang of cross-state Inslamists.

Zarkawi, from Jordon, was, for sure, a ‘terrorist’ – putting bombs in the middle of crowds of civilians was a regular trick of his. But how can the government spokesman, Kuchcinski, know who was behind the attack on the Ambassador today?

Poles are a target in Iraq because they are part of the occupation. And occupations do, I am afraid, get bombs lobbed at them quite often by those who do not want them in their country.

The status of the occupation is made all the more transparent – and resented - by the existence of Blackwater and their ilk. If Iraqis cannot arrest and try these people for crimes against Iraqis - which they cannot - then Iraqi sovereignty is a mirage.

See video of aftermath of attack here and here..

Daily Mail pays Poles to break the law

The beatroot can reveal that in their zeal to prove how ruinous recent immigration by new EU members - meaning Poles - has been to the very fabric of the United Kingdom, the Daily Mail (London) will go to any lengths – including giving people money to break the law.

This April the phone rang and on the other end was someone I know in Warsaw:

“How do you fancy stitching up the Daily Mail?,’ he said.

Apparently, he had got a call from the Daily Mail (I can’t remember how they found him – but I am sure he will be telling us) asking him if he would like to drive a car with Polish number plates from Warsaw to England and deliberately park illegally.

They also asked him to drive purposely over the speed limit in sight of speed cameras.

There had recently been a report by the BBC claiming that Poles had been parking all over the place and disregarding the highway code, as they knew that because their cars were not registered in the UK there was no chance of them ever receiving a summons to pay the speeding/parking fines.

The guy who called me didn’t want to do it, but would I like to get involved in this little scam?

Well, of course

A couple of hours later a 'researcher', Sue Reid (author of this story), at the Daily Mail offices telephoned me. I told her that though I was British my girlfriend was Polish and that she has a car registered in Poland. We were interested.

We were not interested – but we were interested in getting the details of how low journalism has sunk in the UK.

Ms Reid said that she would offer me 800 pounds to come over and park illegally and speed, “Just ten miles an hour over the speed limit, no more…”. We would then go back to Poland and wait for the demands for payment of the fines.

“We know this is going on but we want to prove it by having a foreign car here with a foreign driver for five days and driving and parking in London, Kent, East Anglia and Portsmouth,” said the Daily Mail researcher.

A photographer would follow us around, showing how we were breaking the law. And then, back in Warsaw, when we later failed to receive any demands for payment - as the British authorities would have no record of our vehicle – the Mail would publish the whole thing as an ‘exclusive’ on how Poles and others are breaking the law in the UK and GETTING AWAY WITH IT.

She even offered to put the girlfriend and myself up at her house in Fulham in London, if we had nowhere else to stay.

I was amazed. The Daily Mail is offering money to Poles to encourage them to break the law in the UK – which in itself is a criminal offense, of course.

I asked her to give me an email putting all what she had just said in writing – which she did (fool) – and I would ‘think about it’.

Two days later she sent me another email saying that a Polish couple, ‘were arriving in England today’ (April 30) ready to rack up the speeding and parking fines, no doubt. So they didn't need me anymore. Shame...

That was nearly half a year ago. I am guessing that their sneaky little ‘investigation’ is now at an end and they will be publishing the results very soon.

Everyone I talk to here about this thinks that the Daily Mail must be a disgusting little gutter rag, and the lowest of the low of tabloids. But it isn’t. It is a middle market newspaper, owned by Associated Newspapers Ltd, for the conservative middle class.

I wonder what those respectable Mail readers in the suburbs would think once they realized that their favourite daily is paying people to break the law in England - and then trying to blame Poles, and immigration in general, for a rise in the UK crime rate?

Richard develops the story at the ER blog (see the email).

Changes

As you see, the blog has a slightly new look. It was not me what did it, however, but someone called Peter North and it is part of a few new initiatives at the beatroot.

Peter is son of Richard North, who together with Helen Szamuely, co-edit the EU Referendum blog from the UK.

Richard was one of the first to encourage me to keep blogging in the early days. The blog he runs is one of the most read in the UK and not only reports on what is going on in the MSM but also helps set its agenda, occasionally (I should do their PR!).

Anyway, EU Referendum blog has now sprouted a few new branches, one of which is called Umbrella Blog. It’s really a group of different blogs collated in one place.

So the beatroot is now part of that (slightly dysfunctional) ‘family’ of blogs.

As you can see there are slight changes to the way the beatroot looks – it has a new ‘head’ and the side bar is more logically laid out.

Part of the deal, I was told by Peter, was for the blog to get a new ‘make over’.

Gulp! A blog ‘make over’ to me sounded like one of those TV shows where two bitchy women force you into a room full of mirrors and then slag off the way you look.

‘Does my blog’s arse look big in this new ‘head?’…etc

beatroots, beatroots everywhere…

There are a couple of other projects I have been asked to get involved with.

Clive – a.k.a. Nosemonkey (again, another one of the UK’s top bloggers) – has asked me to help out at the dLiberation blog, part of the openDemocracy group. This is all part of the EU’s Tomorrow’s Europe initiative, which describes itself thus:

Tomorrow’s Europe will help understand citizens’ vision of Europe’s future. How? By selecting a truly representative sample of ordinary citizens from all 27 countries in the EU; providing them with objective information about possible options for Europe’s future; then bringing them together for several days of discussion in the European Parliament, on the 12-14 October…

I will be doing posts on EU, Poland and post-communist central Europe as part of that project.

And the guys at Pajamas Media in the United States have asked me to contribute as Polish/central Europe correspondent. Once I sign and send off the very long contract ( I have discovered I am allergic to fax machines) I will be doing a few posts for them, too.

All of the above moves are simply to further extend our reach in Europe and the US, and get us more readers.

Apart from that, it will be the same old gibberish down at the beatroot.

Ciou

I should say that all the above blogs have come from many different political traditions, and the beatroot does not necessarily agree with any of the opinions you will find in them.

Polish government hung up about death penalty

The UN Assembly, this autumn, will try to pass a motion calling for a worldwide ban on the death penalty. The European Union wants to show support by having a European Day Against the Death Penalty on October 10. All 27 countries supported the idea, accept one – Poland, who vetoed the initiative stone dead.

Oh, no! Not Poland again!

BBC News

Polish Deputy Justice Minister Andrzej Duda said that the EU "should approach the subject in a broader way and debate the protection of life".

"The death penalty is only one element of the debate; there are more - for example, abortion and euthanasia."

The Polish government also complains that since the death penalty is not practiced in any state in the EU then what is the point of having a ‘day’ against it.

Krzysztof Bosak, of the League of Polish Families (LPR), who is also a member of the Council of Europe's Parliamentary Assembly (and currently in the cheesy Polish version of Dancing with the Stars!) - "I think it is hypocritical on the part of the EU to promote abortion, destructive lifestyles and euthanasia and at the same time to pretend to care about the right to life in only one case - death penalty," he said.

President Lech Kaczynski is thought to be in favour of the death penalty, but against euthanasia and abortion. Confused?

He’s not the only one

Amnesty International is one of the main cheer leaders of the worldwide campaign against the death penalty.

Amnesty’s campaigner Martin Macpherson:

Amnesty International opposes the death penalty in all cases and without exception, believing it to be a violation of the right to life and the ultimate cruel, inhuman and degrading punishment. The death penalty legitimises an irreversible act of violence by the state and will inevitably claim innocent victims. Amnesty therefore demands unconditional and worldwide abolition of the death penalty.

I completely agree. But if Amnesty are calling for ‘worldwide bans’ on the death penalty, then you would expect, would you not, that they would have a ‘worldwide’ policy on abortion – either for it, or against it, right?

Well, yes and no. Until very recently Amnesty – not wanting to upset the Catholic Church, with which it has had close links in the past - didn’t have a policy on the issue, at all. It left that one, ‘up to individual countries’.

But now they have finally issued a demand insisting that abortion should be universally available in case of rape, incest, or if the pregnancy endangered the life of the mother.

That’s interesting. Amnesty – universal human rights liberal warriors - after all this time, have just adopted the same policy on abortion as the current arch-Conservative Polish government!

And does this mean Amnesty think that a women’s autonomy over her own body is not a ‘human right’?

Former UK foreign minister Jack Straw tried to help sort out the confusion - by being confusing:

"I think the death penalty is something people have intense debates about, but abortion and euthanasia are seen as a private matter."

Hmmm. Not convinced. People also have passionate debates about abortion, assisted suicide rights, etc. And terminations and euthanasia is a public matter if the state has decided to restrict behaviour on these matters – which all states do. .

I am a pro-choice, anti-death penalty, don’t-know-where-I-stand on euthanasia, type person. So me and the Polish government are at complete opposites on these issues, and many more. But I think if you are going to call for universal rights then you had better be consistent over which rights you have in mind. The Polish government is right, but for all the wrong reasons.

Capital punishment is actually in decline in worldwide

In 2006 Amnesty recorded 1,591 executions, compared to 2,148 in 2005. ‘These figures demonstrate that there is now a real momentum to end capital punishment,’ they say.

So why is the EU as a collective body getting so excited by the whole thing, now, at a time when less regimes (China, Saudi…US) are using this method of ‘punishment’?

Why is it so keen, now, to campaign on banning things that don’t occur within its own borders?

Well, maybe it’s still on the road it has always been – trying to find a reason to be. Brussels can’t find many things to get the different nations together over (Constitution, anyone?) so why not pick something as safe – in Europe – as being against the death penalty? That’s a sure fire winner!

And then the Polish government goes and spoils it all.

Grooooooaaan!

Andrzej Lepper – Poland’s Che Guevara?

In one of the worst articles I have read for some time about Poland, John Cornwell writes for the Times (London) that:

The Kaczynskis and their uncomfortable political bedfellows, the extreme right-wing Self-Defence party and the League of Polish Families party, backed by Radio Maryja, believe they have inherited the mantle of the late Pope, but they have their own version of what has led to the state of the nation he so deplored.

Check out the bit about Andrzej Lepper’s Self defense as being – ‘extreme rightwing…’ One mistake among many, sadly.

Lepper was a member of the Communist Party during the 1980s, and has since forged links with people like Lukashenko in Belarus. He has tried to style himself, a little, as the Polish version of Hugo Chavez.

Lepper has certainly been out to prove his populist leftist credentials in recent days.

The election lists for the October 21 election are now finalized and Self defense has bagged itself a couple of old lefties.

OK, ex-prime minister (2001 - 2003) Leszek Miller is no revolutionary, but he was a member of the post-communist SLD (the old Communist Party) until they told him they didn’t want him to stand for them in this election, as he was associated with corruption and…well, the past in general. SLD want to appear a new, cleansed party, so getting rid of baggage like Miller is essential.

Miller did a moody and joined up with Lepper.

And today Lepper unveiled his latest recruit: Piotr Ikonowicz of the New Left.

Ikonowicz is a veteran anti-communist socialist, regularly imprisoned in pre-1989 Poland for subversive activities.

The New Left are the type of party you see here on marches and demos against the war in Iraq, globalization, etc.

So Lepper, the old Stalinist, is positioning Self defense way to the left, trying to pick up any votes he can. He needs them. Opinion polls are so low for Self defense he might not make it back into parliament.

So what was that about ‘extreme right’ Mr Cornwell?

(Blimey. I think that John Cornwell is this John Cornwell!)

Bad press for Poles in UK

Negative stories about Poles in the UK are a little like the London No 68 bus: you don’t see one for a while, then a load of them come along all at once.

The Sunday Telegraph yesterday:

More than one crime in five in London is now committed by a foreign national, raising fresh fears over the impact of immigration.

Around a third of all sex offences and a half of all frauds in the capital are carried out by non-British citizens.

Poles, who have entered Britain in record numbers since they joined the European Union in 2004, committed 2,310 crimes in the first six months of this year to become the most prolific offenders.

Included among those are 583 violent crimes and 32 sex offenses

Oh, dear

UK Police forces are complaining that the new arrivals into Britain are ‘putting a strain on resources’.

The story comes on the back of one printed in the usual suspect last week, the Daily Mail, which reported that Poles were claiming, as the headline to the story says, ‘one million pounds every month in child benefit’.

Like every good mother, Angela Trajkowski wants the best for her two children.

She buys them new clothes and puts healthy meals on the table, while keeping the family's private flat, overlooking a park in a leafy provincial town, in perfect order.

Her nine-year-old daughter, Martina, attends expensive private lessons after school and her youngest, a four-year-old boy called Alan, will soon be old enough to go to the local kindergarten in the mornings.

Dark-haired Angela, 31, works long hours as an office supervisor but she still relies heavily on child benefit from the state to make ends meet.

Every week, she puts Martina and Alan in the back of her blue Renault Clio and drives the five minutes journey to the cashpoint at her local bank. There, she draws out the £33-a-week put into her family account by the British government. It totals £1,650 each year.

Yet this young Polish mother does not live in Britain. Her home is thousands of miles away in Lubin, a town near the picturesque city of Wroclaw in south-west Poland and close to the German border.

Lubin has no historical links with Britain, while Angela speaks only a smattering of English (learned when she worked for a few months as a cleaner at the London home of singer Bob Geldof and his wife, the late Paula Yates).

Angela is just one of thousands of women across Eastern Europe who, because of the crazy system of hand-outs dispensed by Britain's generous welfare state, are entitled to child benefit.

This week, ministers admitted that more than £1million a month in child benefit is going to the families of youngsters who live in the former Soviet bloc countries.

I should point out that the headline ‘£1m of child benefit paid out a month - to mothers in Poland’ is rather different from the concluding sentence, ‘£1million a month in child benefit is going to the families of youngsters who live in the former Soviet bloc countries,’ – plural. But this is the Daily Mail after all, which as you can see by the style of the ‘news’ article, is not news at all, but propaganda.

An extra 2.500 sounds a lot – although as a percentage of the Polish population in London is it minute – lower than the ratio between offense and population in other ethnic groups, including indigenous British.

Still, these kind of stories will be used by those who believe that free movement of labour and people is a bad thing.

There has been a drip, drip of these stories ever since Poland joined the EU in 2003. But stories like these do tend to come in clusters. Either editors see one story and then go looking for a similar one; or, when there is a broader political context into which these stories fit.

We saw a cluster of these stories before Bulgaria and Romania joined the EU this year.

Polish immigration is again a hot topic, it could be argued, because the EU Constitutional Treaty is back on the (very boring) agenda. Many in Britain are trying to force the government to have a referendum on the subject – new PM Gordon Brown is resisting.

One of the arguments against the EU as a whole – and the EU Treaty in particular – is that it is giving away sovereignty. No doubt about that, of course. The immigration ‘problem’ – our old friend the Polish plumber – is seen as another further loss. Brits are a little shocked by the size of the 'invasion'.

I was listening to BBC Radio 5 last night and the amount of phone calls from Angry of Croydon complaining that there ‘are signs going up all over the place in Polish. Can’t even read the signs in me own country…’ etc...was rather sad.

So if, and when, the EU does comes on the news agenda in the UK, so will stories of wicked Poles in the UK eating baby foxes.

Watch more and more ‘Poles steal baby swans on child benefit’ type stories appearing in the press, as the EU treaty issue heats up in Britain.

The Polish plumber has got his monkey wrench stuck down a British gutter (press).

Idiot’s Guide to Polish Elections II

The Women’s Party have launched their election campaign in Poland.

The caption says: Poland is a women, and with nothing to hide.

Nice! It's got them huge amounts of...er...coverage in the press - although not much of it has been about their politics.

The Women’s Party is one of the newest political parties in Poland, set up in January this year. It’s leader is writer Manuele Gretkowska (first on the right, front row).

Supporters include singers Kayah, Anna Maria Jopek and Maryla Rodowicz.

They are trying to position themselves beyond left or right (though conservatives would think of them as being…er…nakedly leftwing wing).

They want to concentrate on equality issues and the rights of children, etc.

They are for more sexual education in schools, and better childcare facilities, etc.

In fact, it seems like pretty standard feminism from the 1970s in Britain.

Which shows they think Poland is a little behind the times as far as gender issues are concerned.

And they would be correct.

But how well will they do in the elections on October 21? Well, it doesn’t look too good for them at the moment. They need five percent to get any seats in parliament, and none of the opinion polls I have seen gives them that – more like two percent.

A Feminist Initiative party was set up in Sweden a couple of years ago to contest the elections there last year – and they got just 0.69 percent.

So ‘identity politics’ is probably not a good road to go down if you want to do well in elections in Poland – or anywhere else for that matter.

But if they get people to debate matters like the lack of affordable collective childcare, and other obstacles to women improving their lot, then more power to them, I say.

And I am very pleased that it is the Women’s Party who decided to declare that they have ‘Nothing to hide” rather than say Law and Justice or Civic Platform.

But the danger is that if the researchers for the Women’s Party find that they have had a ‘bounce’ in the opinion polls since unveiling their election campaign poster, other politicians might just be tempted to do the same!

I mean, what if heads of state decided to get them all off for photo oppotunities at international summits?

Agggghhhhh!

See Idiots guide to polish elections I

Poland’s Tents against anti-Semitism

Tents have been breaking out all over Warsaw recently. First the nurses and doctors got in white tents in their 'white city' (which, as you can see in the photo, was not strictly true, as it was multicoloured, really) opposite the Prime Minister’s Office last June and July, and stayed in them, for better wages.

They got 30 percent...but not this year.

After the Kaczmarek’s sacking we got red and white tents sprouting up in the same place – it was the League of Polish Families, jumping on a passing anti-Kaczynski bandwagon after losing their place in cabinet when the PM disbanded the coalition.

Now we have Tents Against anti-Semitism. The camping gear is again white and they (it is actually people against anti-Semitism, not their tents) want to promote understanding between communities and are against racism, anti-Semitism and xenophobia.

The action is taking place in three cities – Kiev, Paris and Warsaw.

On the agenda? ‘Dialogue’ and ‘Whether there is anti-Semitism in Ukraine/France Poland.’ Jewish World:

In Warsaw, Poland, 23 year-old Beata Gladis, a student at Krakow University, described a busy morning for the Polish tent, pitched nearby a central synagogue.

"The most important discussion was about anti-Semitism in Poland. Many non-governmental organizations and police took part. We do not have anti-Semitism aimed against people here, but there is destruction of historic monuments and anti-Semitic graffiti here.

When ‘equality’ equals ‘all in solidarity we stand’

The Tents are part of the Council of Europe’s All different – All equal campaign, fighting racism, etc.

Last October, however, the Kaczynski government wanted to change the name of the campaign.

The problem lay in the word ‘equal’, because ‘equality’ is synonymous in their minds with the ‘Equality Parade’, the gay pride march in Warsaw, etc.

The government pointed out that the Czech Republic had it’s own slogan: “Respect each other’, so why can’t Poland.

The Polish government preferred the much, much catchier:

“All different – all in solidarity we stand”.

Doesn’t roll off the tongue as well – and I question the rhythm: try chanting ‘All different – all in solidarity we stand’ at a political rally…doesn’t go, does it?

‘The workers, united, will never be defeated’...has a certain rhythm to it. So does the old classic we used to chant, back in my chanting days:

“Black and white, unite and fight”

It even rhymes!

They don’t write them like that anymore.

As naive as those slogans were, back then, at least they said something essential: that we are essentially the same – we have more things in common than we do differences.

‘Solidarity we stand’ is good in the Kaczynski version: but they still leave in ‘All different’.

And the original version: All different - All equal’, emphasizes equality over solidarity.

So, me, I think we have to have a compromise slogan:

“All equal – all essentially the same”

I know, it doesn’t really have the necessary ‘chant value’, either - in fact the only way you can chant it is if you do it in a kind of Dave Brubeck 5/4 time – but it tells a deeper truth than emphasizing our differences.

But that’s the multicultural way, innit?

A week is a long time in Polish politics

On the first day of the election campaign last Sunday, Civic Platform was…nowhere.

Instead of a rollicking barnstorming speech by the party leader, Donald Tusk, we got Jan Rokita – the other main personality in the party – in a very serious interview on television about some constitutional irregularity by the government on….snooze…

And then, a couple days later, Platform GOT EXCITING, and unveiled a Big Catch – former defense minister for the Law and Justice (PiS) government, Radek (did you know my wife is ace journalist, Ann Applebaum, and I once was a journo in Afghanistan and I carried a gun….I really did!) Sikorski – the Polish political action man.

Sikorski gave a short speech saying that he was, ‘Disappointed with Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski…etc,’ and then stalked off, smirking.

So, a big coup for Platform. And then...

Jan Rokita’s wife – Nelly - announces that she was going to work for …President Lech Kaczynski, to advise him on …‘women’s issues’!

Um….er….mmm…

Quite apart from what she will tell the president about women – many wags have said that Lech’s brother, Jaroslaw, needs the advice about women (but it would be beneath the dignity of this blog to discuss such things), it was quite an embarrassing thing to happen to Civic Platform. What was one of the party’s leader’s wives doing going to work for the dreaded Law and Justice government?

But Nelly – an eccentric character, who shares the same taste in hats as does her husband – had left Civic Platform a while ago, since Jan supported the PiS candidate in the last mayor election in Krakow.

Then Rokita had a hissy fit last week when all Tusk’s mates were put on the election list in Krakow but none of his were.

Rokita won that little battle by getting some of his mates back on the list and everything appeared to have calmed down.

And then Nelly – the political elephant - went and spoiled it all and turned up at the presidential palace.

Oh, dear. Enough for Jan, who has now ‘retired from politics’ and will now not be standing for election on October 21.

Tusk said that he understood that Jan’s throwing in the towel was ‘personal’ and not ‘political’.

Yeah, right. Rokita has never felt that comfortable in Civic Platform – he is more to the right and conservative than Tusk. Platform is really two different parties – as are all of Poland’s election machines, which are in effect, shaky alliances, waiting to break apart whenever someone sneezes.

But Nelly could be a rather expensive luxury for the Law and Justice party. With Rokita out of the way, Platform are far more likely to go into a coalition with the ex-communists after the election – something Jan Rokita would never have stood for.

So it is now not enough for Law and Justice to become the largest party in parliament. If they can’t form a coalition – and nobody really wants to get into their messy bed anymore - then it will be up to the Left and Civic Platform to form the next government.

A week is a long time in politics, and last week was a particularly long one for the Platform.

Bio fuel attacks cost of bread in Poland

The cost of bread, this autumn, is set to increase by 100 percent in Poland.

Why? Because the price of grain has increased as more and more farmers are encouraged to use their land for ‘bio-fuel’ products and less for growing food.

There is a shortage of grain. That means that the cost of grain derived products is increasing.

Italians have been on a ‘pasta strike’ today in protest against the rising price of spaghetti, etc...

Poles are facing a doubling in the price of bread and other products related to grain this autumn.

And the only reason for this is because the EU is giving greater subsidies to farmers turning over their land to growing rape seed and other products that could be used for bio fuel.

So Jo Kowalski is going to suffer from the current prejudice among middle class westerners that the Earth is going to hell and we should be all producing less – particularly emerging economies like Poland.

So cheers the Green consensus! You are making the price of bread more expensive for many poor people of Poland in your zeal to ‘save the planet’.

Aleksander Kwasniewski – still the Polish Left’s best asset?

Though he is not standing for parliament in the elections coming up in Poland on October 21, former president Kwasniewski has been thrust to the front of the campaign by the post-communist Left and Democrat alliance. Is this a good idea?

There are few politicians in Poland who can draw such strong and concrete opinions from the average Pole. Everyone has an opinion about Our Olek.

Many love him, others, as we will see, want to shave all his hair off!

He came to power in 1995, after a titanic struggle with the incumbent president, Lech Walesa. Kwasniewski’s victory was by less than one percentage point. The election showed how divided Poland was after five years of rule by Walesa, who had alienated many of his previous supporters by his autocratic style.

So Kwasniewski became the first – and so far only – ex- member of the communist party to become head of state in Poland via a democratic election.

Once in the presidential palace, Kwasniewski quickly became the most popular politician in Poland – if the opinion polls were to be believed. And he remained in that position for much of the ten years he was in office, after winning a second election in 2000.

Towards the end of his term there was a slip in support as he became identified with the inevitable cronyism of Polish political life.

The conservative right always hated him throughout those ten years, of course.

He took some time off out of the political limelight to go on lecture tours of the US. But this year he has returned to front the Left’s election campaign.

Aleksander immediately puts his foot in it

In an interview last week with the German version of Vanity Fair, Kwasniewski seemed to confirm what many of his opponents thought of him already. He is a traitor.

He said that if Kaczynski’s Law and Justice Party regained power after the election then Germany should react much more toughly in their relations to the Polish government.

Cue outrage! One Law and Justice politician said that, for appearing to take sides with Germany against Poland Kwasniewski should have done to him what collaborators with the Nazis had done to them during the WW II occupation: have their head shaved!

Kwasniewski first claimed that he had been ‘misquoted’ then ‘mistranslated’ but later repented and apologized for his remarks.

It shows that Kwas will never be free of controversy.

But has the row done him any harm? Do Poles want to shave the guy’s head?

Well, an opinion poll released today shows that Kwasniewski – after all these years and after many a scandal – is still the second most trusted politician in Poland!

It appears that many Poles don’t want to shave his head, rather pat it...trustfully.

Kwasniewski is still, by a long way, the discredited Left’s best asset in the coming election – which may show, simply, what a race of pygmies the Left political scene is in Poland.

Or maybe it shows what a race of pygmies Polish politicians are in general.

Poles in anti-Islamification protest in Brussels

Maybe a hundred or two neo-Nazis, skinheads and far right types from Denmark, Germany, and even a few Poles now resident in the UK, turned up to shout slogans about how Islam is taking over Europe.

At Luxemburg Place, near the EU Parliament, there was also the ritualistic pushing and shoving with the cops, who were expecting up to 20,000, not the pathetic amount the organizers could round up (see here and here).

In fact, cops and media outnumbered protestors.

The slogans on the banners included: No Sharia here! …etc.

The demonstration was organized, among others, by Stephen Gash of Stop Islamisation of Europe and of the English Democrats, a party with some members previously in neo-Nazi organizations like the British Nationalist Party (see here).

One Pole told IAR: “Muslims who come to England do not want to assimilate. Their lifestyle, their values, are completely opposite to what we believe in.”

Which is, of course, not true. It is a few of the second and third generation Muslims in the UK (like the 7/7 bombers) who are getting turned on to radical Islam – not their parents.

But the Polish press has been full of the ‘Islamic menace’ today, too.

The Dziennik newspaper published an article by Ariel Cohen of the Heritage Foundation and the security advisor to George W. Bush. He says:

Poland still remembers tragic events of September 11, 2001. Among all Europeans, perhaps except for the Irish, Poles have the closest ties with America. Not long ago terrorist attacks were planned in Denmark and Germany. The next step of Al-Qaeda could be attacking Poland. Poles have their historic experience of blocking the expansion of Islam. [in 1683 a large-scale battle in Vienna was won by Polish-Austrian-German forces led by King of Poland Jan III Sobieski against the Ottoman Empire]. Nowadays they fight bravely in Afghanistan and they fulfill their mission in Iraq. Putting a halt to the spread of radical Islam is now crucial for the West. The United States and Poland will never accept Osama’s attempts to dominate in the world.”

Of course, some nutters (who make sure they wear tight enough trousers before suicide attacks, according to one of the 9/11 bomber's suicide note - he also didn't want anyone to touch his genitals before burial - as if he would have any genitals left after flying a plain into a large building) might try something in Poland. And that would be horrible. But how is al-Qaeda, or radical Islam in general, going to dominate the West?

A few bombs are shocking and barbaric but these people are not in a position to dominate anyone.

It’s the weakness that many feel in Europe – and their lack of commitment to ‘our way of life’ – whatever that is - which is the only thing that could threaten that way of life.

There are not enough radical Muslims in Europe, nor can they ever find enough suicide bombers, to be a threat to Poland or anywhere else in our continent.

Time to calm down and for the few deluded Poles who came over from the UK to protest in Brussels to go and do something more useful with their time – and ours.