Eeek. According to Nick Cohen in the Observer the Cameron Conservatives are heading for the Outer Darkness: After the European elections, British Conservatives will leave the company of Angela Merkel, Nicolas Sarkozy, Fredrik Reinfeldt and the other moderate centre-right leaders who gather under the banner of European People’s party. Although […]
The EU has not sat idly by as British democracy reels under the weight of its own loathsome misbehaviour. On 7 May the EU launched its new Eastern Partnership – an attempt to set up a new sort of structured relationship with the obviously (more or less) ‘European’ parts of the […]
An Independent reader opines with eloquence on my work as HM Ambassador in Warsaw as described here: It all seems reasonably clear. Charles Crawford is a gutless little tosser who clearly knew that Poland was being used for the illegal torture and interrogation of prisoners – but he did nothing about it. And now […]
My colleague Craig Murray throws down the gauntlet; There is an interesting link between Charles and I on torture … All the CIA rendition flights to Uzbekistan came from Szczytno-Szymany in Poland. We now know that the CIA had both use of that airbase and a secret torture prison nearby.https://www.spiegel.de/international/world/0,1518,621450,00.html I […]
Poland, a serious country, is looking hard at treating Leftist and Rightist extremism equally, mulling over a new draft law which would ban the production of fascist and totalitarian propaganda so that it includes clothing and anything else that could carry an image related to an authoritarian system. So, farewell then, t-shirts glorifying […]
Assorted Crawfs are having a few days away from it all in the Algarve: The Algarve. Think of the Algarve and you think of sunshine breaks and relaxing holidays. You imagine golden beaches on the coast of calm sea waters, sun-kissed tourists relaxing and sampling the delights that this wonderful […]
The BBC reports a ruling by a top Polish court that Poland’s cyclists may face imprisonment for riding while intoxicated, as do drivers of motor vehicles. This has to be the right answer, despite the ingenious but specious counter argument that cyclists should be treated as pedestrians who face lesser […]
A reader sends me this striking quote from Coningsby by Benjamin Disraeli, spoken in the novel by Sindonia, the brilliant Sephardic Jew: I always look upon Diplomatists as the Hebrews of politics; without country, political creeds, popular convictions, that strong reality of existence which pervades the career of an eminent citizen […]
In the second half of 2011 Poland holds the EU Presidency for the first time. To get you in the swing of Poland and the EU, here is a new blog by my friend the excellent Polish Gazeta journalist Dominika Pszczólkowska: Poland in the EU. The point about reading Blogs […]
When I was Ambassador in Warsaw and before the FCO embraced blogging with some enthusiasm, I wrote an in-house blog for a couple of weeks. I was limited to 200 words per entry. The FCO kindly have sent me the entries after my Freedom of Information Act request. So, in case anyone […]
