I was down at Guidhall in the City yesterday, to watch the special ceremony of Poland’s excellent Ambassador Barbara Tuge-Erecinksa being accepted as a Freeman of the City. Barbara was deeply involved in the Gdansk Shipyard protests and the heroic rise of the Solidarity movement: Active in the underground during the martial […]
An elegant essay by Theodore Dalrymple on legendary lofty US economist J K Galbraith. Needless to say, what caught my eye was reference to a book JGK wrote in 1958, Journey to Poland and Yugoslavia. As a fine, prosperous East Coast liberal from a democracy, JKG was disinclined to see […]
Families are tricky. They stretch to outer limits our private sense of responsibility. You are Diligent. You work hard and honestly, you treat everyone fairly, you are generous towards friends and family, but you dislike being exploited or ‘expected’ to help others who don’t do all they can to help themselves. […]
I have had an enquiry from someone who follows closely UK immigration issues asking about the policy issues surrounding the opening of the UK labour market to Poles in 2004 when Poland joined the EU: Did the UK government encourage mass Polish immigration into the UK? No. Well, not really. […]
As you try to grasp what is happening in Ukraine, you may well be asking yourself: what does Ukraine mean anyway? And, needless to say, views differ. There is a root word kraj in Slav languages which has all sorts of nuanced meanings in different Slavonic languages, linked to the […]
A friendly reader asks: Thank you for producing such a thought-provoking and readable blog. I thought you may be interested in this link to a press release from the Swedish MFA. They plan to close 6 Posts and open 10. https://www.sweden.gov.se/sb/d/12653/a/138250 Several of these post closures are in the EU. […]
Adam Jasser (Polish, Reuters journalist-turned-pundit, good egg) argues that the grim problems besetting Greece and its public finances could lead to the Eurozone getting even stronger: The argument goes that a default would require Greece to leave the euro zone and increase pressure on other peripherals such as Spain or Portugal. […]
Here from euobserver is a detailed account of the goings-on behind the EU scenes, as everyone tries to work out how the new EU External Action Service will be structured. And who will get which jobs, since that will have a huge influence on the way it all works (or […]
Edging back to normal life again after three days running around bewinter’d Poland. What a pleasure to be in a country able to cope sensibly with snow. Far from snow is Haiti. Ben Macintyre blames the French for brutalising Haiti into paying ruinous reparations for its temerity in wanting to espouse […]
Remember my rather dismissive account of the UK’s attempt to teach the Russians how to fish, rather than inundate them with free fish? And the ensuing Big Mac Attack? I have just heard from a former member of the UK Agriculture Ministry MAFF (by no means related to naff) who […]
