If you have been beaten up by someone for nearly fifty years, does that ‘cloud your judgment’ about the beater? But however clear-eyed Lithuania’s decison-makers claim to be about today’s Russia, many seem myopic about their own country’s past. Anger over 48 years of Soviet occupation clouds their judgment about […]
The Polish media are reporting that Polish local government employees dealing with applications for EU funds are quitting their jobs to join the private sector, where pay is much higher. No surprise. The Polish Development Minister told me a while ago that the greatest problem Poland faced in spending its […]
Battle is being joined on what happens next with the Lisbon Treaty following the irish No. The Irish are saying that there can be no quick solutions. The French and Germans are calling for everyone other than the Irish to ratify. The Czechs are saying that the Treaty is dead. […]
Let’s look a bit more closely at Will Hutton’s arguments on the EU Treaty as published yesterday in the Observer. He denounces ‘Eurosceptic’ celebrations at the Irish vote as a farrago of lies and disinformation. OK. Let’s proceed. WH v CC. WH: The reality is that Ireland’s ‘no’ voters have […]
Imagine you are the Foreign Office in London. A bit of a wildcat in your youth. Yet still squeaky keen to show Relevance and Cleverness. Egad! An idea dawns. Let London lead the praise for the sybaritic delights of latter-day Western personal freedom! British Embassies should all fly the LGBT […]
Busy times in the ever-complicated relationship between Poland and Germany. Robert Kubica becomes the first Pole to win a Formula 1 Grand Prix race – driving a BMW in Montreal. Then Germany beat Poland 2-0 in Euro 2008, with Polish-born Lukasz Podolski scoring twice – for Germany! Before the match […]
Zimbabwe as expected falls ever more steeply to total disaster. The gang of military/security leaders previously dependent on Mugabe now look to be running the shop, desperate as they are to cling on to power and privileges at the cost of ruining their own country. A text-book case. Yet the UN still […]
Read this remarkable piece by Ben Macintyre about the huge collection of papers and other material deliberately buried by heroic Polish Jews during the Warsaw Ghetto disaster of WW2. They knew what they were doing: The compilers of this archive knew they were doomed, and framed their project as an […]
Here is Pat Buchanan rambling on about the utility of talking to dictators. He somehow contrives to say that Poland brought Hitlerian disaster on itself by being a bit too "proud, defiant and heroic", albeit egged on by "insane" British guarantees. All this and more is meant to cast in […]
Back from Poland, my first foray back there as a businessman – or, as they say in that part of the Europe even for one such – biznesmen. A linguistic quirk. Many Slavic nouns have a feminine form. So as well as appropriating the word biznesmen, many Slavs informally call a […]
