SIXTY SIX AND TWO THIRDS

A milestone 'birthday', every bit as important as 50 or 75, yet passing unnoticed by most people. Today I* am exactly two-thirds of a century old. Eight months have passed since my 66th birthday; my 67th birthday is four months away. We seem to ignore thirds. Today also happens to be the 35th anniversary of the parliamentary elections in Poland that resulted in the communist government losing power – yet the third-of-a-century anniversary came and went on 4 October 2022, unnoticed. (And yes, that day also happened to be my 65th birthday.)

I was born on the same day as Sputnik 1 was successfully launched into orbit, making me exactly as old as the Space Age. My birth was also bracketed by what was as the time, the world's worst and the world's second-worst nuclear accidents (Kyshtym, USSR a week before and Windscale, UK, a week after). The world has changed, the world hasn't changed. Below: AI-generated image, prompted as a celebration of this milestone that I have accorded to myself.

As I get older, I find myself becoming more and more like my father. Noticing, counting, measuring. filling in spreadsheets. 

New toilet roll today? The last one has lasted me since 26 April. The daily exercise and diet spreadsheet is now in its 11th year. As medical evidence about the importance of muscular strength into old age builds up, I continue fighting on to beat last year. (One thing I can see is if you don't use it, you lose it – quickly. If I drop doing, for example, press-ups or pull-ups for a few days, it's hard to get back up to that same number even after a week or more.) The daily exercises are also important for building resilience against twists, sprains and falls. And crucially, skeletal flexibility, so my vertebrae don't fuse together (my father was bent over double in advanced old age).

And indeed, from today, I have added the countdown to my 100th birthday, it is 12,175 days away. Will I make it? It is my will to do so; whether my will aligns with the Cosmic Purpose is another matter! Genetically, there's hope (my father died at the age of 96, my mother at 88), environmentally too (I exercise more than my parents and eat a far healthier diet than my cake-loving mother). And there's the spiritual aspect too.

Gratitude is all important. I offer that conscious expression of gratitude several times a day, for health, for peace and security, for food, for all the good that surrounds me. I know I must never take any benefit for granted, nor consider myself entitled to anything.

My spiritual views on life are becoming clearer as a grow older. [Note – grow older. One should grow spiritually, gaining wisdom with age.]

All who seek God (however one chooses to define God) shall find God in their own way. There are myriad paths to transcendence.

My own path? The material and spiritual are separate and yet one; science and religion should get ever closer, until both ways of looking at the Cosmos can finally agree on the nature of reality.

* My body and its ego. The consciousness that's subjectively observing from this bodily platform is eternal.

This time last year:
Marching for Openness and Normality
(People – we did it!)

This time three years ago:
40th anniversary of the Osieck railway accident

This time four years ago:
Moonrise, Nowa Wola

This time five years ago:

Awaiting the Summer Sublime

This time eight years ago:
4 June - a date remembered for...?

This time nine years ago:
Corpus Christi, rural Mazovia

This time ten years ago:
25th anniversary of Poland's transition

This time 11 years ago:
Poland's infrastructure progress

This time 13 years ago:
Wetlands in late-spring

This time 14 years ago:
Jeziorki's flood of floods: Puławska and Pozytywki

Jeziorki's flood of floods: Sarabandy and Karczunkowska

Jeziorki's flood of floods: Trombity and Kórnicka

This time 15 years ago:
Another time, another place

Power in the vertical or horizontal?

'The Power Vertical' is the title of a Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty blog about Russia, but the title can apply to any country where power is concentrated in the hands of one person; Castro, Kim Jong Un, Lukashenko, Assad, Mugabe, Maduro  - and those who are trying to achieve this end - the likes of Erdogan, Orban, and yes, Kaczynski.

Suweren, 'the sovereign'. Jarosław Kaczyński, leader of the largest party in the Polish parliament, though neither the elected head of state nor prime minister, is bent on building a state that channels all power through his trusted people up to him. No room then for distributed, bottom-up networked decision making, no room for people at grassroots level with a different world-view competing for control of the levers of influence.

The state-owned media has been put into the hands of loyalists who've turned it into a shameless propaganda. I don't watch TVP any more - it's party media. Now, using regulatory mechanisms, PiS is setting out to reduce private media outlets' ad revenues and hence influence.

The new trend in Polish politics in recent months is to start questioning the reason for existence of non-governmental organisations (NGOs), starting from healthcare charity WOŚP, through to attacks on environmental groups.

Ahead of 2018's local elections, the organs of state are trying to discredit popular local leaders who are not from PiS, an example being Hanna Zdanowska in Łódź. She borrowed money to treat her sick child, made some mistake on the application form, repaid the loan, and is now facing investigation from the CBŚ despite the fact the bank from which she borrowed the money has not even raised this as an issue.

The education system is likewise being adjusted to the needs of Mr Kaczyński; more history (of the right sort), less stuff like science and dodgy things like evolution. The liberal wing of the Catholic Church in Poland has far less influence than the Radio Maryja end of the spectrum, broadcasting intolerance from Toruń, which tends to sees eye-to-eye with Mr Kaczyński.

Mr Kaczyński is intent on snuffing out alternative sources of power to his, just as the communist party was, creating a monopoly that did not countenance non-party initiatives. Communism deprived people of democracy via the ballot box and also of free association and freedom of speech.

Looking at the state of Polish NGOs, there's much that could be improved. Governance and transparency. Compared to British NGOs, which are generally well-run and have traditions going back decades in many cases, Polish NGOs are still in their infancy. They mean well but could do with being more professional. This does not mean they should be closed down; on the contrary, they should be allowed to grow their memberships, focus on effective fundraising and communicating with people at ground level.

The more people can get together to help one another, the less they have to reach out to the state to help them, the less influence the state has over us, the less important it is when the state is won by a person inimical to democracy.

The populist cry 'down with the elites' takes on an interesting meaning when one pauses to consider what a member of the elite actually is. According to Polish sociologist Jerzy Stelmach, it's a person whose livelihood is not in the least bit linked to whoever holds political power. All the placemen in Polish government agencies and state-owned enterprises are not, by this definition, members of the elite. They are here today, gone after the next election. They cling on to their cushy jobs by dint of their political loyalty within the power vertical, knowing that their office with two assistants, their chauffeur-driven car, is entirely dependent on PiS winning the next parliamentary election.

This makes me a member of the elite. I'm old enough and successful enough (and lucky enough) not to be financially dependent on the ebb and flow of Polish politics. This makes me independent, and, being ideologically opposed to power verticals of left or right, I'm therefore suspect in the eyes of those who support Kaczyzm.

To those who support PiS, I'd say this. There were plenty of imperfections with the PO government, especially towards the end, when complacency and laziness set in. But were things in Poland really so bad that the baby had to go with the bathwater? Was Polska really w ruinie? Was the situation in the autumn of 2015 so bad that democracy (albeit fledgling and imperfect) had to be replaced by a one-man party bent on creating a one-party state?

Power in the hands of one man? NO THANKS.

This time four years ago:
And still they come [anomalous flashbacks that is]

This time five years ago:
Classic glass

This time six years agor:
What's the Polish for 'pattern'?

This time nine years ago:
"Rorate caeli de super nubes pluant justum..."

We wake up on Monday - and...?

SEVEN SCENARIOS FOR SUNDAY

You have a stiff drink and retire early on Sunday night before the polling stations close at 21:00; you miss the announcement of the exit poll results and the night-long frenzy of analysis and what-iffery. You wake up refreshed on Monday morning, and head for your favourite Polish news source. What will happen? I've carefully (and soberly) considered seven scenarios - each one entirely plausible. Right now, like Schroedinger's cat, each scenario is both alive and dead at the same time - until that moment we open the box and peer in. Any of them could happen. And if I've missed a plausible scenario, please let me know!

So then we are having...

1) PiS has managed to win an outright majority, with 231+ of 460 seat in the Sejm going to the party. They do not need to find any coalition partners with whom to form a government. A bit like Cameron's Tories on 10 May this year. Weeping, wailing and gnashing of teeth from all those who believe that things will take a turn for the worse. Foreign investors start scouring CEE for safer locations for their factories, BPO centres and regional HQs. Servers at Ryanair and WizzAir crash. My blog post headline on Monday: We can only hope.

2) PiS clearly wins the largest number of seats, but remains 20-something seats short of a majority. With whom will it form a government? PO, ZLew, Petru, Kukiz and PSL (in that order) make it across the line. PiS + Kukiz = still not enough seats. Once again, PSL, Poland's great political survivors and jobs-for-the-boys act hold the cards. Kaczyński has to take back a lot of nasty things he said about PSL and swallow his pride. But after five weeks of wheeling and dealing, PiS+Kukiz+PSL finally form a government. My blog post headline on Monday: No rush for the door - just yet.

3) PO does better than expected, after Beata Szydło's whiney, apologetic tone fails to convince voters that she's premier material. PO win just as many (or just slightly fewer) seats than PiS. The late surge, coupled with a good showing from Petru, allows his .Nowocześni party to form a more reformist government with PO, as Kukiz voters evaporate. The new coalition announces a focus making the Polish state more efficient. The zloty goes through the roof, as does the WIG20 Index. Kaczyński and Macierewicz say that the ballot was rigged, and that a silent coup d'etat has taken place. My blog post headline on Monday: Good sense triumphs - and I must say I'm rather glad.

4) As above, though with PO unable to form a government with Petru alone. In this version, PSL has made it back into Sejm, as it always does, polls notwithstanding. More wheeling and dealing, more jobs in state enterprises negotiated for the boys, and a fragile three-party coalition is formed. Relief from the markets that the gloomiest prognostications have not come true. More grumblings from PiS about a 'conspiracy'. My blog post headline on Monday: Don't let PSL at the honeypot.

5) A knife's edge, in which ZLew plays a deciding role. Palikot? Acceptable to PO. Greens? Unia Pracy? Ditto. Leszek Milllller? Beyond the pale when it comes to cutting a deal with PiS... but would PO be desperate enough to try to form a government with the Assorted Lefties as a coalition partner? Possibly - even if it meant bringing That Irritating Man back into the corridors of power. Another advantage for PO would be the ability to ditch PSL. Would Petru be needed as well as the lefties? My blog post headline on Monday: Lefties call the shots

6) Comedy Central (for those not having to live it): PiS with Kukiz and KorWiN form a government (may this NEVER happen). A nuttier re-run of 2005-2007, with PiS playing PiS, Kukiz cast as Samoobrona (remember them?) and KORwIn playing the League of Polish Families (gay Teletubbies and main-road mini-skirt ban). The world's media decamp to Warsaw to relay humorous goings-on to their readers and viewers back home. Poland becomes world's laughing-stock. I mean, Corbyn's never going to form a government - this collection of clowns already have! KoRWiN and Macierewicz in one government? WHAT a hoot! My blog post headline on Monday: Got to laugh to keep from cryin'.

7) Stalemate. PiS gets 220 seats. PO gets 185 seats. ZLew gets 40 seats. Petru gets 15 seats. No one else gets in (reminder to non-Polish readers: a party needs 5% of the vote to get over the threshold, a alliance - such as Zjednoczona Lewica - needs 8%). No Kukiz. And the usual kingmakers, PSL, fail to make the 5%. Who you gonna turn to, PiS? The heirs to PZPR, or the anti-statist voice of the free market? My blog post headline on Monday: With which devil will PiS get into bed with?

Dear Readers - if you can come up with any other (relatively) plausible scenario, please do so in the comments box below. And remember - anything can happen in the next 100 hours. Bronisław Komorowski enjoyed a 40-point lead over Andrzej Duda and lost. And that in the UK General Election held in May, not one opinion poll taken the day before the vote predicted an outright Tory majority. Like zero. So polls often get it wrong. Voters, when pushed (as also in the case of the Scottish referendum last September) tend to choose safety and security over the radical and unknown.

So - what do YOU reckon will happen on polling day?

This time last year:
Bilingualism benefits the brain

This time five years ago:
Crushed velvet dusk in my City of Dreams II

This time six years ago:
Going North, the quick way

This time seven years ago:
Glorious autumn dusk

This time eight years ago:
Last man voting?

Polish politics enter a critical period

Populist politicians can seriously damage their country's macroeconomic fundamentals to the point where their stated aim - making life better for the ordinary citizen - ends up working in reverse. Take Brazil or Venezuela for example.

The interface between politics (which party you vote for) and policy (the competent delivery of a well-organised state) is complex and few voters see it in action.

Members of Parliament, posłowie, deputies - are elected legislators. Their job is to propose laws, shape those laws, vote them into force, thus changing the shape of the state - for better or for worse. The quality of that legislation is crucial, whether it be the transposition of EU Directives into national law, or determining the law at the national level where appropriate.

The law must be simple to interpret - so an administrator (urzędnik) in Białystok will understand the law's intent - and act accordingly - in the same way as an urzędnik in Wrocław or Łódź. To ensure the wording of the law is clear and unambiguous - and reflects the will of the people - legislators, our elected law-makers - must be up to the job. They have to be intelligent enough to grasp the complexity of what they do, and appreciate the consequences of their decisions.

My professional life brings me into close everyday contact with the consequences of Poland's elected law-makers' decisions. Whether it be the digitisation of medical services, municipal waste collection, vocational education, renewable energy or public procurement, I can see how the precise wording and interpretation of the law as it is set out by our elected posłowie has a tangible effect on people's lives. A well-organised state is an efficient and happy state. Bad things happen there less often.

Example. The Sejm is currently debating an amendment to the law on the delivery of medical services, to allow for telemedicine (remote diagnosis). This would allow a doctor sitting at a computer many kilometers from the patient to diagnose symptoms using online tools such as webcams, scans of ECG readouts or e-mails from specialists. Had not some bright spark spotted it, the amended law might have insisted that the room in which the doctor's computer sits be lined with washable tiles. And in the absence of such tiles, the doctor would have been liable to be fined or be struck off. Fortunately, this absurdity was picked up in the draft law's third reading.

My point is this. If you elect pop stars, actors, primary school teachers, farmers - they may mean well - but when it comes down to the nitty-gritty of law making - a tedious and highly detailed activity - their attention may stray from getting the letter of the law right. And the consequences will be felt by us all. If they're not up for the hard grind of the legislative process, they will be letting down the electorate.

Law making should be left to those who can do it. Hustings should be more about competence than charisma. Experience is important, as is intelligence. We need legislators who can hang their egos on the coat peg as they enter the legislative chamber and focus long and hard on the outcome of their deliberations

Yet worse than amateurs in power, I fear idealogues. People who fail to see common sense, because they are guided by one ideology or another. Uncompromisingly they will force their agenda, irrespective of whether it improves the lot of the average citizen.

On Sunday 25 October, we'll be offered the choice of who is to govern Poland for the next four years. Poland is a great European economic success. The economy is currently growing at an annualised pace of 3.6%. No other large EU member state can match that. The danger is that with a populist tax-and-spend, economically nationalist, government in power, foreign investment will be discouraged, jobs growth will cease, entrepreneurs will up sticks and move elsewhere, inefficient state enterprises will be propped up with taxpayers' money, and rent-seeking cronyism will take hold.

So who to vote for? Until Ryszard Petru nailed his colours to the mast, I'd have stuck with PO. But they are a spent force, especially after the departure to Brussels of Donald Tusk. They have become stale, complacent. They need a jolt of reformist zeal. This could come from a junior coalition partner like Ryszard Petru and his .nowocześni party.

Polling 8.1% in yesterday's Radio ZET opinion survey, .nowocześni are in the running to make it over the 5% threshold and get into parliament. Despite the polls' increasing unreliability, it seem certain that Petru's party will make it into the next Sejm. The question who else of the smaller parties will.

The big question mark is Kukiz '15. Without any real policies, their support is evaporating from poll to poll. A protest party that can offer no meaningful alternative, it is currently polling around 6%-7% - enough to get into Sejm, but a far cry from the 20% that Paweł Kukiz polled in May's presidential election.

There's three weeks to go; the election will be crucial. The outcome can be either 'steady as she goes' with a PO-led coalition roughly continuing on a similar course the past eight years - though hopefully with a jolt of Petru, or turn in a populist, amateur, shambolic direction that would shame Poland internationally and harm its healthy economic growth prospects.

More on Polish politics between now and the election.

This time two years ago:
First intimation of new Biedronka store for Jeziorki

This time four years ago:
Moni leaves home for Łódź film school

This time five years ago:
Out and about in Jeziorki

This time six years ago:
Funeral of Lt. Cmdr. Tadeusz Lesisz

This time seven years ago:
Puławska by night

Poland in ruins

A big thank you to Student SGH for pointing me towards Polska w ruinie, a Facebook site mocking the assertion by opposition politicians that Poland is in ruins. Poland is clearly not in ruins.

As I got off the bus this morning and boarded a town-bound train at W-wa Okęcie, gazing down at it all from the brand-new pedestrian walkway, it occurred to me that for all my moaning and complaining about the tardiness of the S2/S79 construction works, things are finally coming right for Poland. The walkway still has to reach the station, but it crosses the main road.

I remember when this was all fields...

...back in 2009. Polska w ruinie.

I looked at the cranes on the horizon, all the way from Wola via Śródmieście all the way down south towards Mokotów and Służewiec. This isn't EU hand-out money - these are private investors expressing their faith that Poland's economy will continue to grow at a handsome clip.

It would be a shame to flush all this down the toilet by voting for an ideologically-motivated party with little interest in economic matters, willing to sacrifice the economic gains of the past quarter-century out of political spite. [I recall talking to the vice-president of a state-owned enterprise who'd been installed by PiS after its 2005 election victory. I asked about the tasks ahead of him. He said "I've got a couple of years to get rid of all the communists working here". Commercial goals were of little interest to him.]

Populist politicians the world over tend to convince those who are less determined, less hard-working, weaker of will, that it wasn't their fault they preferred to goof off rather than study for their exams, or that their work-rate was lower than that of their more successful colleagues, or that they preferred to spend money on immediate pleasures rather than save. No, it's the fault of a global conspiracy of evil people to do them down. "Vote for me, and I'll take money from the rich man in taxes, and give it to you in benefits." And this process has the side-effect of totally screwing up the economy. Just look at Venezuela. Politically motivated, economically hapless. And look at Ukraine - richer than Poland in 1990 in terms of GDP per capita - now a basket case because of 25 years of bad government. And Argentina - in 1900, the world's fourth-richest economy, today merely an emerging economy. Bad macroeconomic management by elected governments.

Poland has done well, yet it's economic success has tended to be patchy. Poland's big cities have done well, Warsaw the best. Take a look at this map of Europe's regions - here. (A big thank you to Paddisław Wędrowniczek for digging this one out.) This picture dates back to 2011. Since then, Poland's economy continued to grow faster than the rest of the EU, so the picture showing the catch-up process is even more pronounced when the data is extended up to the second quarter of 2015.

So back in 2011, Warsaw's residents are better off than people living in most UK regions - only Inner London, Berkshire, Buckinghamshire, Milton Keynes, Edinburgh and Aberdeen are better off. (This is in terms of purchasing power - living costs are much lower in Warsaw, in particular housing, public transport and education.) Poznań and Wrocław were looking good too - and we can see the effect that KGHM, Poland's copper-mining powerhouse, has had on the Legnicko-Głogowski region.

The current Polish government has had a lot of good luck, it has made some good macroeconomic decisions, it has largely avoided taking bad ones, but it has failed to drive the reform process at the pace required to spread the fruits of a quarter-century of economic boom more evenly. This complacency now threatens the government in the forthcoming parliamentary elections, set for Sunday 25 October.

The idea that a 'right-wing' government will redistribute wealth by taxing retailers (all of them - foreign or Polish-owned, selling food, clothes, furniture etc.) on turnover rather than on profits is laughable. It will only serve to decrease wealth and lead to job losses. In Hungary, ideologically motivated tampering with macroeconomic issues resulted in the closure of shops on a Sunday. The result - the destruction of 3,000 jobs since March. A Sunday-trading ban would hit Poland - a much larger economy - even harder.

Messing about with the macroeconomic levers sends all the wrong signals to foreign investors, who - like it or not - create vast numbers of jobs and put billions of zlotys into Poles' wallets. Silly policies such as 're-polonising the banks', arbitrary changes in the way certain sectors are taxed, bringing down the retirement age or closing shops on Sundays are all messages to foreign investors - "don't bother coming here to create jobs".

I am worried that at the elections, ideology will take the upper hand over economic pragmatism, that an ill-judged assault on 'foreign capital', 'exploiters of the ordinary Pole', will actually have the opposite of the intended effect - due to the economic illiteracy of an ill-chosen government. I'd like to be able to look at this post in years to come and say 'I got it wrong'.

Either in that PiS took office and steered clear of making ideologically motivated economic policy mistakes - or that by some miracle they didn't win the election.

This time three years ago:
Penrhos - a bit of North Wales that's forever Poland

This time four years ago:
On motivation - and being motivated

Barefaced populism exposed

The date of the next Polish presidential elections will be announced on Wednesday; most likely the first (and only?) round will take place in mid-May. The winner will be the incumbent, Bronisław Komorowski. The outcome is so utterly certain that the opposition parties are fielding totally unknown candidates so as to save their big guns from humiliation.

Stalin-Lenin-Dno (SLD), the successor to the Polish communist party, PZPR, will not be fielding its hated leader, Leszek Millllller, the Moscow-educated, former Secretary of the Central Committee of the PZPR. Instead, SLD presents a Ms Marionetka Cucumber, a total unknown, who at least has a pretty face.

Polish peasants' party PSL has yet to announce its candidate - it's unlikely to be deputy prime minister Janusz Piechociński. One rumour is that PSL won't even bother putting a contender into the race.

Law and Justice (PiS) leader Jarosław Kaczyński, having lost the 2010 presidential election to Mr Komorowski 54.4% to 46.4%, does not wish to become a two-time loser. So Law and Justice is fielding... Andrzej Duda. OK, I so never heard of him before either (he's not to be confused with rabble-rousing Solidarność leader Piotr Duda).

I recently started following Law and Justice on Twitter. Travelling home from work this evening, I was reading my Twitter feed, and chanced upon choice excerpts from Andrzej Duda's speech to voters in Grodzisk Mazowiecki. I was shocked by what I read.

"Niska płaca nie uzdrowi polskiej gospodarki,ozdrowi ją popyt. A ten będzie tylko przy większych zarobkach" [Low pay will not heal the Polish economy, it will be healed by demand. And that will only grow through high earnings.] All well and good - but who is to pay for the higher earnings? Maybe the entrepreneur? The small business owner?

"Polska jest nieopresyjna tylko dla wybranych. Zwykli, mali przedsiębiorcy najlepiej to rozumieją." [Poland is unoppressive only to the chosen. Ordinary, small entrepreneurs understand this best." So while they are currently being oppressed, under President Duda, they'll have to be oppressed even more to find the extra cash for higher earnings for their employees - and to pay the additional taxes to ensure the public sector also gets higher earnings. Given that 52% of the Polish workforce is directly employed by Polish small entrepreneurs, I feel that this particular group of voters will not be casting its vote for Mr Duda.

"Obrót polską ziemią będzie uwolniony w maju 2016 r. Jest jeszcze szansa zatrzymania tego procederu. Musimy zabiegać o ochronę polskiej ziemi, nie możemy jej oddać w obce ręce." ["Buying and selling of Polish soil shall be fully liberalised in May 2016. There is still a chance to stop this racket. We must strive to protect the Polish land, we cannot give it up to foreign hands."] Purest demagoguery. Barefaced populism of the most shameless kind.

Surely Mr Duda realises that Poland is a member of the EU? And that in the Accession Treaty, Poland signed up to the liberalisation of sale of agricultural land after a 12-year transition period? And in return, the countries letting Poland into the EU signed up to allowing Polish workers access to their labour markets - in the case of most countries, after a seven-year transition period. Over 77% of Poles voted in the 2003 referendum to join to the EU. So what is Mr Duda proposing? To tear up the Accession Treaty? Plain nuts.

"Skąd mają wziąć się miejsca pracy dla młodych ludzi, skoro zajmują je ich dziadkowie?" [Where will workplaces for young people come from, if they are being occupied by their grandfathers?] Do you know any octogenerians in the workplace, blocking the recruitment of graduates and school-leavers? This smacks of blatant ageism.

And this: "Jak można wprowadzać system przedłużający pracę ludzi, nie dając im nic w zamian? [How can you introduce a system extending people's work, not giving them anything in return?] Mr Duda's populist attack on pension reforms ignores that YES THEY HAVE BEEN GIVEN SOMETHING IN RETURN. It's called A LONGER LIFE. The average Pole lives three years longer today than in 2000, and six years longer than in 1990. Thanks to (yes) improvements in the state-funded healthcare system, as well as other benefits that free-market democracy bestows upon its citizens. As the lifespan of Poles increases, it is economically essential that they spend some of that extended life at work earning money rather than simply withdrawing pensions from an ever-shrinking pot.

Populist politicians trotting out such twaddle are either totally ignorant of the realities of the economy and the way the world functions - and should not hold public office on account of their outright ignorance - or they know damn well how it all works but are shamelessly lying into the electorate's face. It's binary - it's one or the other. Mr Duda is either ignorant or a liar.

I feel inclined to vote in the first round for the attractive Ms Cucumber, in order to totally humiliate Mr Duda and the PiS strategists who decided this lightweight populist should represent their party in a futile one-horse race against a dead-cert. Incidentally, 'Duda' can be translated into English as 'Bagpipe'. Very fitting.

Social inequality, over-regulation of small business, imperfections in the working of the single European market and pensions reform are all important issues that need to be resolved incrementally, by the application of human intelligence, demanding nuanced solutions that take the long term into consideration. Not by a meaningless, impotent litany of 'musts'  and 'shoulds'.

This time last year:
Straż Ochrony Kolei explained

This time two years ago:
The end of winter? So early?

This time three years ago:
How much education for the nation?

This time four years ago:
To the Catch - short story

This time five years ago:
Eternal Warsaw

This time seven years ago:
From the family archives

Schadenfreude

Oh what bliss it was to watch TV news on Friday evening! Earlier that day, the story broke that three PiS deputies - Adam Hofman, the party's spokesman, Mariusz Kamiński (not to be confused with the former head of the anti-corruption agency, the CBA) and Adam Rogacki - were caught flying to Madrid on Ryanair when they had all claimed expenses for driving there and back on parliamentary business.

They would have gotten away with it, had it not been for the fact that their wives, travelling with them, were drinking alcohol that they'd brought onto the plane (something forbidden by the airline), and were remonstrating aggressively with cabin staff. The in-flight fracas was brought to the attention of the tabloid press, which led to some investigative digging. This in turn resulted in some interesting facts coming to light.

Firstly, that Hofman had done this fiddle before many times over the years - claiming mileage for driving to foreign destinations on parliamentary business, yet buying tickets on low-cost airlines. The sum of 64,000 zlotys (about £12,000) has been mentioned in media reports. The other two were also discovered to have been doing this. They'd been buying the airline tickets weeks in advance of claiming for travel expenses.

Secondly, that once at his destination, Hofman only voted six times out of the 25 parliamentary deliberations that he had ostensibly gone to attend. He'd sign his name in the register and then slip away. So rather than sticking up for Polish taxpayers' best interests, he'd be off sightseeing, at their expense.

All the glee and schadenfreude at the political end of this slippery trio has come at a particular inauspicious time for PiS - a week before the local and provincial elections.

To his credit, Prezes Kaczyński has terminated the trio with extreme prejudice - they've been expelled from the party earlier today. Oh what bliss it was to watch the TV news this evening! Mr Kaczyński has lost his able spokesman, who always knew how to make his boss look good, just as Poland is about to vote for its mayors and provincial parliaments.

Fun though it may have been watching PiS squirming in extreme discomfort, it is worth putting this Polish MPs expenses scandal into perspective. Do take a minute or two to see the size and scale of the 2009 UK Parliamentary Expenses Scandal. How the mighty have fallen, eh?

I'm sure that PiS deputies were not alone in this form of misbehaviour. It is evident that there were no checks in place to make sure that the money given as an advance (zaliczka) was ever accounted for later. Having worked all my life in the private sector, this is unthinkable. When I return from a business trip, I account for all my bus tickets, taxi receipts, hotel invoices etc - or I don't see my money back. That's fair. I cannot get to grips with an expenses system that's so lax that money is just handed over on trust - and that's the end of the matter.

And the idea of flying to a conference and not taking part is equally scandalous. If the taxpayer is paying these parliamentarians to represent them internationally - that is what they should be doing.

The arrogance and complacency shown by these three deputies should, I hope, result in none of them ever holding public office again. And a thorough investigation needs to be carried out into our parliamentarians' foreign trips - how much they cost and what they accomplished.

It is worth copying the idea of TheyWorkForYou.com. This website gives UK voters all the details about the person who represents them in Parliament. Take a look, for example, at Stephen Pound MP, who represents my parents' constituency, Ealing North. To quote something that three different visitors from the UK have said to me over the past week, 'this is what "good" looks like'. Poland needs to replicate this. OniPracujaDlaCiebie.pl, anyone?

This time last year:
From the Mersey to the Tyne

This time two years ago
Autumnal Gdańsk

This time three years ago:
What Independence Day means for Poles

This time four years ago:
Words fail me: what's the Polish for 'to fail'?

This time five years ago:
Autumn in Dobra

This time seven years ago:
Autumn ploughing

Goodbye Premier Tusk, hello President Tusk

The selection of Donald Tusk, until yesterday Poland's prime minister, as president of the European Council was met with the same muted enthusiasm as the election of Tadeusz Mazowiecki as Poland's first post-war non-communist prime minister 25 years ago today.

A deal had been done, a result achieved. Poles felt a subdued sense of achievement then as they do now; the pride of being recognised as an Achiever Nation.

Mr Tusk, Poland's longest-ruling premier since the downfall of communism, will have plenty of people willing to criticise him from the left and from the right - which means he pretty much got things right. He could have advanced further and faster, but the direction of travel was correct. He kept a coalition going for a full term, then got re-elected, the first government to do so since 1989. The knockers may knock, but the macroeconomic indicators and the international rankings - as well as the honour of being selected as one of the EU's three principal leaders - suggest that he must have been doing something right.

Let us hope that in Brussels Mr Tusk will give the EU some backbone when it comes to realising where the big threats are coming from - not only in the form of a resurgent, awkward, nationalistic Russia - but also in the form of threats to Europe's competitiveness, over-regulation, and petty national self-interest.

Let us also hope that Mr Tusk will provide Mr Cameron with the ammunition needed to shut up his UKIP critics - by pushing the EU on a reformist path based on economic goals rather than on top-down federalising ambitions. Let's see the transatlantic trade deal (TTIP) hammered out, let's see Europe's economy becoming more innovative and open. Let's see a Single European Market in goods, services and digital services (why can't I watch BBC programmes online in Poland?)

Let us hope that Mr Tusk has a good English teacher. Stories from his classmates that he used to bunk off English lessons disturb me slightly - bunking off Russian I can understand, but if you were offered the chance to learn English back in the 1970s, Donald, you should have grabbed it with both hands.

Let us hope, too, that Mr Tusk's energy levels, commitment and drive do not dissipate, and that he can be seen by Europe and the world as an effective champion of market-driven solutions and smart regulation. And that Mr Tusk will give the EU some firm backbone in the face of a nationalistic, bullying, cheating Russia.

Meanwhile, here in Poland, Ewa Kopacz has been nominated prime minister. Not my choice - I'd have gone for another woman, Elżbieta Bienkowska, but she's also off to Brussels to serve as commissioner for the internal market (big job to do here, especially in services and digital). Deputy Premier Bienkowska did a great job in regional development, and was doing well running an expanded ministry that also took in infrastructure (a job no man in Poland had ever achieved great results).

Ms Kopacz? Her greatest hour was as Poland's health minister during the swine-flu crisis (remember that, readers?) in 2009-2010. Unlike other European health ministries, who were panicked into buying huge stockpiles of vaccines than ended up unused, Ms Kopacz took the firm line that the threat was overplayed and that the health budget was better spent elsewhere. The opposition demanded her head, she kept cool and saved the Polish tax payer a shed-load of money.

Somewhat she seems lacklustre as a future Polish premier; her job is to keep the PO government going until the next parliamentary elections in the autumn of 2015.

Given the shambles that is Poland's opposition (both left and right), I wish her well and will support her in keeping the country on its current course. "Steady as she goes, Captain Kopacz."

This time last year:
Return from depressing Radom

This time two years ago:
Up up up with the Cosmopolitan

This time three years ago:
New urban toponyms: "P+R Al. Krakowska" = Okęcie

This time four years ago:
Politics - a change of gear

This time five years ago:
On preference and genetics

This time six years ago:
"GET IN THE BACK OF THE VAN!"

To vote or not to vote in Sunday's mayoral referendum?

For readers outside of Poland; Warsaw's mayor, Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz faces a no-confidence referendum this coming Sunday, brought about by an alliance of opposition party PiS and local Ursynów district mayor Piotr Guział. For her to be kicked out of office, a majority from a turnout of 29% of the eligible electorate is required. In other words, 14.5% +1 of all registered voters in Warsaw.

This is political opportunism riding the wave of public protests that followed recent public transport price hikes. Has HG-W had her day? I don't know. I'm against public money being spent on a referendum to oust an incumbent that will face regular local government elections in less than a year's time; having heard PiS leader Jarosław Kaczyński on the radio the other day, I can see his policy (rather than political) arguments are wafer-thin and this referendum really boils down to right-wing PiS trying to cash in on leftie discontent for party-political reasons.

So - the dilemma facing me on Sunday is do I go to vote (to keep HG-W in), or do I boycott the referendum as being a waste of time and money?

Before I make my mind up as whether to vote or not, I'd like to know more about the division of responsibility between City Hall and district hall. Who's really responsible for ul. Karczunkowska still not having a pavement? Who's really responsible for the appalling state of ul. Hołubcowa? (not so much as street as a giant puddle used for dumping household and construction waste) Who's really responsible for the lack of asphalt on ul. Poloneza (between ul. Jeziorki and ul. Ludwinowska, and between ul. Krasnowolska and Platan Park?

Guział or Gronkiewicz-Waltz? Where does the buck stop in issues concerning the city, and issues concerning individual districts (in our case Ursynów)?

The referendum is spurious. If less than 29% of eligible voters within Warsaw's city limits turn out to vote, the result is null and void. So - given that most of those who will be going to the ballot boxes on Sunday are PiS-ites and assorted fellow-travellers, surely those who wish to see HG-W seeing out the last nine months of her second term of office should stay at home, and let the febrile political posturings play themselves out against a vacuum of indifference?

I'm genuinely in need of advice here - smart tactical voting decisions. Gazeta Stołeczna gives me no lead - for every tactician there's an ideologist wedded to the notion that the right to vote was hard-won and should always be exercised. I'm tending towards the former view, but would be interested to see what readers think - I'd be grateful for your suggestions (you don't need to be a registered Warsaw voter to contribute).

And indeed, if you think that HG-W should go - please tell me why... Maybe you can still convince me. Four days till the polls open.

This time last year:
Gorgeous cars from Czechoslovakia

This time two years ago:
Donald Tusk and Co. get re-elected

This time three years ago:
Poland's wonderful bread

This time four years ago:
An October Friday in Warsaw

It's later than you think

The parliamentary elections are coming up in nine days time. I must confess to a gentle, creeping, withdrawal from politics; the campaign is making the front pages and the main items on the TV news - and I find myself not reading, not watching, on the basis that it's all dull and repetitive. I know what each talking head is going to say, and therefore, trying to make the best use of my time, I simply switch off. I know how I'm going to vote - and yes, I'm most certainly going to vote.

I am worried. The polls - which consistently showed PO ahead of PiS by 15 to 20 points - are now indicating a mere three points lead for PO. Why has it shrunk so, and what could this mean?

PiS has returned to its strategy from before last summer's presidential election: tone down the Mr Angry rhetoric, appear moderate in tone - and - in an absolute master stroke that political parties worldwide would do well to copy - have put up thousands of billboards showing a collection of elegant and no doubt fragrant women, smiling benignly down upon the voting public. What could be more reasonable? Not a trace of post-Smolensk ranting, not a whiff of memory of the last time PiS was in power (in a bizarre coalition with the late Andrzej Lepper's potato-throwing Samobrona and the frankly nuts LPR); the paranoia, the witch-hunts, the loss of international prestige...

I was going to put an updated version of my Just Say No To Beton Jarka logo on the blog, but PiS has propelled its public image so far away from that of a ranting awanturnik stirring enmity, distrust and paranoia, that in this election campaign it appears far-fetched.

The Polish electorate has a poor short-term memory and an equally poor grasp of economic realities. The global economy is heading for another recession. Poland will escape economic contraction in 2012 - momentum is too great to see 3.8%-4% growth turning into a contraction within five quarters - but what happens in 2013 depends to a great extent on the economic policies that are pursued by whoever is governing Poland next year.

Any populism - which at this stage of the economic cycle means failure to cut public spending rather than simply go on increasing it - will result in the things that are dragging down Greece, Italy, Portugal, Spain and Ireland happening here. Poland is in good shape to ride out the next storm - providing it sticks to fiscal rectitude and battens down the hatches. I certainly trust Jacek Rostowski more when it comes to pointing the ship of state in the right direction than any PiS, SLD or PSL candidate for the post of finance minister.

Think long and hard about the Poland you want. We're in for troubled times. We need grown ups at the helm - foreign policy, financial and economic policy being absolutely key. This is no time to wobble, to cast your vote on a whim, for some minority issue; it's about keeping the silly-billies away from the tiller of government.

If you can vote next Sunday, don't, whatever you do, let them win. Take it damn seriously.

This time last year:
Melancholy autumn mood in Łazienki

This time three years ago:
Autumn gold, Zamienie

This time four years ago:
Flamenco Sketches - Seville

Of sausage and drains

I had a real fright this morning. Opening the mailbox I found an awiso from the post office, addressed to both my wife and myself, that there is letter awaiting collection. Why the fright? Usually letters addressed to both of us come from one source - the tax office. Well do I remember those Days of Fear in September 2005 when I received a summons from the tax office. What was the problem? The suspense was unbearable. It is entirely possible to unwittingly commit a heinous tax offence in Poland either because you've misunderstood something (przychód -'revenue', 'income'; and dochód - 'income', for instance) or because of a variance between your tax adviser's interpretation of the richly opaque tax law and that of the local urząd skarbowy. (As it happened, the issue here was that I'd accidentally written down our total income in box 115 rather than box 114 of our annual PIT-37B tax return form.)

At the post office, I took my ticket for the queue and waited, amusing myself as two elderly ladies traded insults (one had got her ticket from another elderly lady and thus found herself ahead of her interlocutor in the queue). Chamka! they yelled at each other. Fifty minutes and five ticket numbers later, it was my turn to collect our post. It was....not from the tax office!

It was from the Department of Architecture and Building for Ursynów District, Warsaw City Hall. Telling us... telling us... Well, here's a literal and direct translation of said missive.

NOTIFICATION

Of the institution of proceedings

On the basis of:

Article 61 para. 4, art. 10 para. 1 and art. 36 of the Law of the day of 14 June 1960 year, of the Code of Administrative Proceedings (unified text in the Journal of Laws no. 98 from 2000 year, position 1071, with amendments); art. 50, art. 53 of the Law of the day of 27 March 2003 year about planning and town planning (Journal of Laws no. 80 from 2003 year position 717 with later amendments).

[Still with me, readers? Now, take a deep breath and try reading the following sentence without pausing for another breath.]

[I] i n f o r m [you],

that on the motion of the Urban Enterprise of Waterpullings and Canalisation of the Capital Town Warsaw Joint Stock Company filed on the day 14.09.2010 year with an amendment dated 05.10.2010 year, administrative proceedings were instituted in the matter of determining the localisation of the investment in the public cause for the investment depending on the construction of a sewerage canal Dn 0,2m, along with the accompanying technical infrastructure on ul. Trombity on the stretch from ul. Karczunkowska up to the property on ul. Trombity 20 and in the pedestrian-driving traffic route (up to the properties on ul. Trombity 18) foreseen for the realisation in the District of Ursynów in the Capital Town of Warsaw on the following plots...

[there follows a list of plot-, rather than house-, numbers]

This classic example of Polish bureaucratic gobbledygook gives me cause to thank the Plain English Campaign that this kind of stuff does not appear in the UK and pray for a Plain Polish Campaign along the same lines. There is a need here for Gricean Maxims (1. Be truthful - well this probably is; 2. Provide as much information as necessary, but no more - this is overload. Is anyone going to refer to all those old laws? 3. Be relevant - see above and get to the point. 4. Be clear - this fails totally. A total of 116 words in this single sentence including 17 subordinate clauses.)

What does this mean? In a word, drains! After eight years living here, there's finally the distinct probability that at some undefined point in the future, we will no longer need to use a septic tank which needs emptying every two weeks. Jeziorki edges ever closer to civilised norms.

The dwellers of the southern end of ul. Trombity now have seven days to make their comments on the plans, which are publicly available for inspection at the Architecture and Building Department, room 306, Al. KEN 61, from Monday to Thursday, between 12 and 3pm. In other words, we have 12 working hours in the middle of the working day to make our comments. Well, at least the blockers can't block.

The prospect of being finally connected to the city's sewerage network reminds me of a stanza from John Betjeman's In Westminster Abbey:

Think of what our Nation stands for,
Books from Boots and country lanes,
Free speech, free passes, class distinction,
Democracy and proper drains.

I am also mindful of the impending local elections. The clear calculation that voters will be more likely to support the incumbent if progress is occurring around them. The cynical part of me thinks 'electoral sausage'. The rational part of me is delighted that we seem to be closer to civilisation. All I need now is a letter informing me that ul. Karczunkowska will be getting a pavement soon.

Politics - time to change gear

Since Platforma Obywatelska (PO - Civic Platform) was formed in 2001, I have voted for the party at elections local, parliamentary and presidential. Its blend of moderate economic liberalism and moderate social conservatism squares pretty much with my own views brought over with me from the UK. I remember when PO's leader Donald Tusk made his maiden speech as prime minister to the Polish parliament. I was sitting in a traffic jam, radio turned up; I found myself involuntarily applauding every other sentence. A speech in which the importance of re-building trust in Polish society was the key theme.

Yet today three years on, with PO in such a strong position in Polish politics, I am thoroughly disillusioned with it and yet there is no alternative to it. None.

And when a political party gains such control it can use it for good, or ill. But in the case of PO, it's not using it at all. The party is showing that its natural instincts are to do nothing. Hope something will come along.

Why am I writing this today? Firstly, a personal epiphany last week. I am unlikely to vote for Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz, the PO mayor of Warsaw in this autumn's local government elections. She has done too little for the residents of Jeziorki. Some sewers are being built, but at a snail's pace. There is still no pavement along ul. Karczunkowska, no road crossing by the bus stop, water standing on fields drowning crops (where are the drainage ditches?), far too many unasphalted roads, no macro-scale planning solutions to suburban and exurban sprawl and how the owners of the tens of thousands of new homes recently built around the city's rim are to get into town. And still no drains for ul. Trombity. We have spent nearly 15,000 zlotys (£3,000) on having our septic tank emptied since the last local government elections. Enough already!

Secondly, the realisation that Donald Tusk's government has not got down to any serious reforms of the Polish state. When I read Scatt's blog post today about his attempts to extend his meldunek and resident's permit, my blood boiled. That such brutally unhelpful, pig-ignorant people should still be allowed to interface with the public, 20 years after then end of communism, just beggars belief. The woman in question should be thrown out of work. Poland can't afford better medical treatment for its chronically ill citizens and yet can afford to pay a salary to this useless woman (and many, many more like her).

Reform is not just about making the Polish state more citizen-friendly. It is about making those tough choices that need to be made to get Poland's budget deficit and public debt under control. And what are we seeing? One percentage point increase on VAT and talk about a tax on banks (which will in any case be passed straight on to their customers). Where are the cuts?

Hats off to George Osborne (who's gone up in my estimation immeasurably since becoming Chancellor of the Exchequer). This is what needs to be done - set a target (get the deficit down to around 1% by 2016) and define the way to get there. The gap will be closed by a mix of measures that is 23% tax increases, 77% spending cuts.

Yet there is no appetite in Tusk's government - even with a PO president - to contemplate the minutest cut in spending. All the talk is of price rises of government services - vehicle technical inspections (the Polish MoT), vehicle registration plates... But what about slimming down and streamlining onerous procedures? When it comes to setting up in business as a sole trader - jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza - paying taxes, buying real estate, going to court - in these areas Poland competes with some of the world's most inept states, say the World Bank and PricewaterhouseCoopers.

The English-language corner of the Polish blogosphere is currently replete with stern mutterings that the political and economic situation is no good and that Something Must Be Done. Polish M'Knob is worried that the Poland's current economic dash is unsustainable in the medium term. Student SGH at Politics, Economy and Society is worried that Jarosław Kaczyński is going nuts and radicalising the National Catholic element in a most unhealthy and undemocratic way, while his Prawo i Sprawidliwość (PiS - Law and Justice) party implodes. Raf Uzar is saying pretty much the same thing. Pan Steeva in Młochów compares, on the basis of latest World Economic Forum findings, how much ground Poland still have to make up on the US and UK in terms of innovation, labour market efficiency, macro-economic business environment and of course infrastructure.

Public spending cuts have to be made, but they have to be made where they have the least negative impact on the economy. Compared to the UK, Poland has the relative comfort of lower deficit (6.9% of GDP last year as opposed to the UK's 11.2%) and lower debt (roughly 54% of GDP vs. the UK's 70%). This means that Poland does not need to cut to the bone. Infrastructure spending must increase - and don't forget our railways. Innovation is needed and a reformed higher education system that turns out graduates with skills that employers will need a few years down the line.

Savings can be made almost anywhere. There are way too many bureaucrats adding nothing to the economy. In the UK, Companies House (where all limited liability companies are registered), employs 1,064 people to look after the entire country. In Poland, companies are registered in a court. A judge decides. Why? Who's the other party in the case? In Warsaw alone, the Ministry of Justice (again - why!) is believed to employ 1,200 people in the KRS to administer this procedure. 'Believed' - unlike the transparent UK government, where this information is available on line - in Poland there is no such information publicly available. The estimate comes from a Warsaw lawyer that regularly has dealings with the KRS.

In Ireland, it costs €0.009 (nine-tenths of a eurocent) to raise one euro of tax. In Poland, it costs 2.3 grosze to raise one zloty of tax. The Polish tax system is two and half times less efficient than the Irish system. Why is Poland's VAT threshold so low? It costs more to administer the VAT input and output of low-turnover micro-businesses than the revenue it brings into the treasury. It is to create work for armies of clerks. The savings made here should be redistributed into spending on education, healthcare and infrastructure.

Last year, Deloitte published a report saying that Poland could save 15 billion zlotys (that is three times more than the VAT rise from 22% to 23% is expected to bring in) by creating a shared services centre for government so that payroll, HR and other back-office functions for all the ministries and government agencies can be handled from one place rather than from 45 separate departments as at present. This is the kind of radical thinking that's needed right now.

But we won't see it from Tusk and Komorowski. They are far too busy worrying about next autumn's parliamentary elections. Who are they worrying about? PiS will have imploded by then, fracturing into at least two smaller parties, the Jarosław hardcore and a more moderate socially-conservative but economically statist party. SLD will gather support, especially from the young who don't remember the indignities of living under communism. (They should remember the impudent corruption of the Miller government 2001-2004). Socially-liberal and redistributionist, SLD will support the miners and other powerful bastions of worker privilege living off the taxes of others. SLD will not reform the state, just fill its top positions with its own cronies.

A new party is needed, not necessarily more liberal than PO on economic issues - but prepared to do it, not just talk the talk. Politicians - other than Jarosław Kaczyński - are not showing any conviction. PO is satisfied with just hanging on in power. But guys - what about the history books? Do you want to be remembered as the government that could have done something but didn't?

The Polish media need to engage with their readership. Where should the cuts come? How can Poland balance its budget? Would you rather let large swathes of public sector employees retire early on your money - or spend it on new roads? Would you rather increase VAT or personal income tax?

See how the BBC is doing this here. Look at the clarity of the language. And this - what would you do?

Mud and rain and local elections

Early start today - eight o'clock meeting at Platan Park on the top end of ul. Poloneza. To get there, equipment such as that offered at this week's Kielce arms show would be useful... four-wheel drive, underwater breathing equipment, deep fording capability - ul. Poloneza is as atrocious as it ever has been. With the middle bit still cut off because of the bridge building that's going on, a diversion down the equally untarmacked, cratered and waterlogged ul. Oberka is required. And it's been raining for much of the night.

So I get into my dear old Nissan Micra at half past seven - put key into ignition - nothing. The battery's dead. The electrics don't like the wet, and round here you can't get far without getting the undersides of your car soaked in giant, road-wide puddles whenever it rains.

Plan B! Back into the house, into 'waterproof' clothing, and wheel out the bike. I arrive at Platan Park just four minutes late for my meeting, though entirely spattered with mud.

Above: the water-table is just inches from the surface. Looking towards ul. Poloneza from ul. Ludwinowska. Right in the distance - the new bridge being built over the new Warsaw Southern Bypass, the S2. Cycling from Platan Park to Powiśle and home today I cover 33.2km (20.6 miles).

Ul. Poloneza is a scandal. Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz will have to go as Warsaw's mayor later this autumn. She has FAILED to provide the residents of Jeziorki with a) asphalted roads, b) pavements upon which we can reach bus stop or railway station with dry and unmuddied feet and c) town drains, forcing us to pay 220 złotys (44 quid or €55) every two weeks to have our plop-plops, wee-wee and bath, shower and washing-up water syphoned up by a great big tanker lorry and removed.

I voted for her last time, but she has FAILED me. I shall not be voting for her nor for any head-banger from PiS, nor for any old-time communist from SLD. If a local non-party affiliated person stands for mayor on a platform of building roads, pavements and town drains for the suburbs, he or she has my vote.

Look at it! This from March last year. Or this - January last year. Or this - February 2008. The scandal of Warsaw's unmade roads is not just ul. Poloneza - ul. Hołubcowa (below), Zatorze (which must the the most impassable road in any OECD capital), Oberki and of course Dumki. Roads as crap as this take their toll on cars - see what happened to my Nissan three years ago on ul. Poloneza.

Mayors have a short time to prove themselves good housekeepers (dobry gospodarz). Neighbouring districts outside of Warsaw's city limits (Nowa Iwiczna, Lesznowola) have asphalt, pavements and drains - so why can't we - in the capital of the EU's sixth-largest member state?

All of this is linked to the building of the S2 Warsaw Southern Bypass. Ul. Puławska is soon to be choked down to two lanes in each directions where the two roads will cross. When that happens, true commuting hell will result.

UPDATE: 14 September - a big thanks to reader Gaweł for this link to a report in TVN Warszawa from 18 months (!) ago highlighting the problem of the lack of pavements and crossings on ul. Karczunkowska. We hear the head of Ursynów's infrastructure department, Leszek Ciurzyński, saying that the most optimistic scenario is that we'll have the pavement 'in the second half of 2010'. Well here we are and we're still waiting.

UPDATE: SEPTEMBER TWENTY FUCKING TWENTY THREE - The S7 expressway is now open all the way from Grójec to Warsaw, disgorging hundreds of cars an hour down Karczunkowska AND THERE'S STILL NO FUCKING PAVEMENT, THANK YOU CUNTS.

Gone is the threat of Państwo Smoleńskie

The final vote has just being announced - it IS Komorowski, by 53% to 47%. Just six percentage points in it on a 55.3% turnout. A lacklustre campaign by Komorowski, he was outshone by the rhetorically more-gifted Jarosław Kaczyński, who made political capital from the sympathy vote.

Cui bono? asked Adthelad commenting here recently on the Smolensk disaster. It certainly seems to be to the bono of Jarosław Kaczyński's PiS, which has managed to revitalise itself totally, reinvent itself a more moderate voice and make up some 30 percentage points of drift.

How come 48% of Poles voted Kaczynski? asked Scatts commenting here last night on the exit polls. A map of how Poland voted gives you the answer. Rural eastern Poland was massively pro-Kaczyński. Western and urban Poland, massively pro-Komorowski. Lublin, where the antics of PO deputy Janusz Palikot swayed the moral outrage of the local electorate, was the only big city to vote Kaczyński. 66% of university graduates voted Komorowski with only 34% voting Kaczyński, whereas of those with only school education, 62% voted Kaczyński while 38% voted Komorowski. Big cities were 63%-37% for Komorowski, while the Polish wieś (village) voted 58%-42% for Kaczyński.

Map courtesy of Mikrobit/PKW

Komorowski is a safe pair of hands, stability rather than reform. And the slim majority that PO could muster over PiS is a strong signal to premier Tusk that with parliamentary elections next autumn, he had better behave himself and keeps his troops in order.

The result is a good one. No one-party system is good. Checks and balances are needed. With a strong PiS in opposition, PO will not be able to afford any slip-ups.

These elections, despite the circumstances, show that Poland is normalising politically. Go back just ten years, and post-communist Aleksander Kwaśniewski trounced all-comers in the first round with 53%. This time round, the post-communists were said to have had a good showing at 14%. Now, for the first time, we have the same two parties, PiS and PO, contested the presidency as in a previous election. Consistency is taking hold. If this goes on, a normal two-party system will take root.

Some good points made by the Economist's CEE blog:

The big question now is the future of the Polish political landscape. Some suspect that Mr Kaczyński's true aim was to to lose this election by a whisker in order to allow PO a free hand, which would mean unpopular reforms and a better chance for Law and Justice at the parliamentary election in the autumn of 2011.

Another theory is that the fruits of victory may prove not quite what PO wanted. As EU Observer notes, the "veto-wielding, traditionalist late president" was a handy common enemy which preserved party unity. With the Kaczyński bogeyman gone, infighting in the victorious camp may be the result.

Now to get on with it. The government has no excuses - reform of the ineffectual Polish state and its sleepy aparatus must be pushed ahead. There's no need to cut as deeply as George Osborne is proposing in the UK - the Polish budget deficit is nowhere near such a bad way (6.9% vs. 11.1%) but cuts are still needed to get it down to manageable (1.5%-2.5%) levels.

As I've written here many times, the business environment in Poland must be more small business friendly. It must become easier and cheaper for the entrepreneur to hire people. This means reform of ZUS - a huge disincentive for the private sector to employ anyone. And it must become easier and quicker to set up new businesses. Poland needs to shoot up the rankings of the World Bank and other global institutions when it comes to the ease of doing business. Infrastructure delivery needs speeding up especially in the areas of waste treatment, roads and railways. The tax system needs to become more streamlined and user friendly - it costs Poland two and half times more to collect a zloty of tax than Ireland to collect a euro of tax.

Inefficient, over-bureaucratised states are poorer and more corrupt than efficient states with a lean, well-organised public sector. This has been proved time and time again by academic studies and rankings around the world. The obstacle to reform has gone, now it's time to plough ahead.

Can we breathe easy?

Both exit polls give Bronisław Komorowski a narrow margin over Jarosław Kaczyński. TNS OBOP, for public broadcaster TVP, gave Komorowski 53.1% to Kaczyński's 46.9%. (Remember, TNS OBOP was far more accurate in its first-round exit polls). Millward Brown SMG KRC, for TVN, also gives it to Komorowski (51.8% to 48.2%) , as does Homo Homini (for Polsat) but with a wafer-thin margin of 51.1% to 48.9%. A mere 2.2 percentage points is well within the pollsters' margin of error.

It's too close to call. I'm not going to comment until every last vote has been counted. Tomorrow morning we shall see whether or not Poland has escaped five more years of political deadlock by the skin of its teeth. The metaphorical champagne remains corked. Until tomorrow, or until 2015, we shall see.

UPDATE: 05:07am PAP reports that Kaczyński leads by 50.4% to 49.6% with just over half the electoral districts having declared.

Out on the perimeter

Less than seven kilometres (four and half miles) from the very centre of Warsaw, and you are right out in parts of the city so rural you'd think you were deep in the countryside. Below: Siekierki power station from the flood protection wall. Earlier last month, firemen fought desperately here to stop waters from seeping in under the wall. They succeeded. The sandbags (just out of sight) are still here today.

Below: rail crossing where the coal train makes its way to the power station. Pure Kentucky, is this not? The Vistula is to the left of the flood protection wall. A long way home, but on a day like today, I feel the need to get on my bike and ride and take photographs. No apologies for vibrance of colours; it's that polarising filter giving you an idea of how it looked to me wearing polarising sun glasses.

The railway line runs from Siekierki to Konstancin-Jeziorna sidings; from then on via Nowa Iwiczna and Jeziorki, to the sidings at Okęcie. Below: passing Kilometer 500 on the Vistula. The black sign (left) has the numerals cut out so that boatmen can read it clearly.

Below: I'm deliberately not showing the river. It hides behind high walls. Its presence is felt. Last month, the water was getting close to spilling over the top and trickling under the sodden foundations of the flood defence walls.

Below: I cycled along the banks of the Vistula. There's no tidy towpath, just a track along the top of the flood wall. Here and there you can catch sight of the river. Eventually, I get to Obórki, then I head inland through Okrzeszyn, Powsin, the Las Kabacki forest and home. A long ride, but every inch of it in the presense of the Sublime. Below: A field near Okrzeszyn, Kentucky?


Right: Powsin, Warsaw. Let's not forget where we are. It's just five days before the second round of the presidential elections. You have a choice. Use it to determine whether Poland will mark time or march backwards.
It's quiet and calm in this very rural part of Warsaw, though cyclists and motorbikers are drawn to its quiet byways on beautiful summer afternoons and evenings. Quite a contrast to the rush hour hubbub of Ursynów just three miles to the west of here, ul. Puławska jammed up solid with commuters.

What do I want for Poland

I want a modern, normal country, of which I can be proud. When I took the decision in 1997 to move to Poland with my (then) young family, a colleague at work in London mocked me. "America, Canada, Australia - I can understand. But you are emigrating to Poland?!? POLAND! That's some kind of a JOKE country!"

That hurt. I was brought up as a Pole in the UK, and returning to my fatherland was a form of destiny shaped by my upbringing - Polish school on Saturday mornings, Polish scouts on Saturday afternoons, Polish church on Sunday. I am here by choice, not by default. I won't have the beton Jarka element label me as unpatriotic; I want what I see is best for my country.

A modern, normal country. One where decent citizens can go about their daily, law-abiding lives, working in fulfilling jobs, paying taxes, trusting one another, trusting the Polish state, trusting their neighbours, employers, tax authorities and police. A country with decent universities, turning out graduates that are equipped for the labour market of tomorrow. Graduates that don't have to flee to foreign universities to get decent research fellowships. A country when research and development spend per capita is as high as it is in Scandinavia, the US or Japan. A country not dependent on jobs on low-cost manufacturing, but on high-value added high-tech industries and professional services.

Poland does have the people. I never cease to be amazed at the quality of young people - hard working, intelligent, well-read, highly-motivated; yet the country - the state - can't seem to get itself organised in such a way as to harness that energy to the full. Too many talented Poles leave Poland to make a career in foreign universities, foreign companies in foreign countries.

Year by year, Poland is moving away from joke-country status. Since we moved to Poland, it has become a member of NATO, the European Union, the OECD club of rich countries. Since 2004, Poland's GDP per capita adjusted for purchasing power parity has risen from 54% of the EU average to 61%, and climbing fast. In 2003, Poland's economy was seven times smaller than the UK's. Today, it's only four-and-half times smaller. I want Poland to have a strong economy. For that to happen, the economy needs to be run by people who know about the economy. Here, I mistrust PO less than PiS. And that's what it boils down to.

I want a country of entrepreneurs, not bureaucrats. Poland does have one of the highest percentages of workforce employed in micro-businesses (employing one to nine employees) in the EU. That's basically one big ZUS dodge. The average Polish micro-business employs 1.3 people. The "entrepreneur" (read: 'self-employed person for tax reasons') and his wife doing the books one third full-time equivalent. Because it's too damned difficult for a sole trader to do it himself. The average British micro-business employs 3.7 people. That's healthier. Go up to the small firm level. Only 12% of the Polish workforce is employed in small businesses (10 to 49 employees). This is the lowest level in the EU. So medium- and large-size firms can go about their business without feeling the nip of competition at their heels - and can get away with charging higher prices and offering worse service than in the UK.

This needs reform.

In the UK, to be self-employed, you merely fill in two sides of a form (CWF-1) and send it to your local tax office. And you pay tax once a year. In Poland, you go through inordinately more bureaucracy to be able to call yourself a jednoosobowa działalność gospodarcza. In England, if you wish to tune pianos, trim decorative hedges, teach ballroom dancing or renovate classic cars, you just get on and do it and pay the taxman annually. In Poland, the citizen is not simply allowed to go out and earn his or her way - he or she must apply to the state for permission to do so, pay tax and ZUS and VAT monthly, and be subject to such rigorous supervision as to put off all but the hardiest souls. (In the UK, you are only obliged to pay VAT if your earnings exceed £70,000).

Put it another way; if Poland is to really take off as a country, it needs to make it much easier for people to start working for themselves, to employ other people; it must be easier to pay taxes.

Where's the political appetite for reform? Looking at the economic programme of the presidential candidates, I could only see real economic reformist zeal in Janusz Korwin-Mikke (slightly nutty party) and Andrzej Olechowski. Both marginal candidates without any significant party support.

As for two remaining candidates, the least-worst option is Bronisław Komorowski. Plodding and steady rather than an energetic driver for change, I feel he won't get in the way. I don't get that feeling about his opponent.