Nudge vs. nakaz

How do governments change the (bad) habits of their nations? Until recently, it was by force of law. The electorate would vote for a government on the basis of policies suggested by competing political parties. The elected legislature would debate issues of concern to the populace, and from that debate laws would be enacted - and enforced.

Example. In 1952, the Great London Smog killed thousands of Londoners. The result was the Clean Air Act of 1956, which put a stop to the practice of burning whatever came to hand in the fireplace. Only smokeless fuels were allowed. The freedom of individual householders to burn what they chose ended where the freedom of every other citizen to breathe clean air began. Good communication (there was a notice on every lamp post in my childhood West London), the threat of fines (£10 for a private household  - around a week's wages then), and public understanding of why burning smoky fuels was socially unacceptable, meant that the number of prosecutions under the Act was very low.

In my lifetime, drivers lost the freedom to drive around without seat-belts, motorcyclists to ride around without helmets - the threat of a hefty fine and losing one's licence being a good incentive to comply.

Yet in recent years, democratic governments have been looking at alternatives to enforced compliance as ways of getting people to change their ways. This has been known as 'nudge theory', and has been practised by the first (and only) British prime minister to be younger than me (David Cameron) and the first (and only) American president to be younger than me (Barack Obama). A sign that we are indeed evolving in the direction of wisdom. [But it's two steps forward, one step back.]

In the UK, the government's Behavioural Insights Team (or 'nudge unit') devised some excellent ideas to get citizens to do what the government would like them to do. Pay more taxes? Make the form simpler to fill in. Leave more money to charity? Ask them what issues they feel passionate about. Insulate their lofts? Realise that most attics are crammed with junk that needs to be moved before the insulation can be laid, and help with that.

Governments that bully are not liked. The current Polish government has just proposed legislation making it illegal to build a detached house. The logic behind this is worthy enough - limit urban sprawl - but it smacks of top-down bullying, and is a clear limitation on personal freedom. It also smacks of populism - "I can only afford to live in a block of flats, so why should that rich family have the right to live in a detached house".

Should such a law come to pass, the effect on the housing market will be immediate - the premium on detached houses (and plots still retaining planning permission for a detached house) will rise, as people will want to buy one simply to have one.

Nudging is better than ordering. Being bossed around, being told what to do, is not something we humans feel comfortable with. We'd much rather think that we're working together to a common purpose. But can we move from the current state to a better one without having to impose sanctions on those who do not want to come along with the rest of us?

I'm thinking air pollution. This evening, on my way home, I passed a house across the way that was belching think black acrid smoke from its chimney. The smoke was pushed to the ground by high air pressure (1,028 hPa). By the time I'd got the few hundred metres home, I reeked of the smoke.

This is how Warsaw's smog is formed - it's a periphery problem caused by people living in old houses, burning bunker fuel, lignite, wood, waste - anything but gas or electricity. It's literally three houses (two on Trombity, one on Karczunkowska) that are responsible for the bulk of the crap in Jeziorki's atmosphere.

How to stop these people? This house is not rich, but they're not poor either (a huge TV set is visible through a window). How to change their behaviour? Would nudge work? Would heftier fines work (as I posted earlier, it costs the local authority 700zł to send out a team to investigate the air quality and to lab-test the results, whereas the maximum fine is 400zł. What if it were 1,000zł - a week's average wages (as was the case in 1950s London)? What if my neighbours and I drew up a respectful  letter to the offending households saying that their behaviour is intolerable?

Does nudge work as well as nakaz in Poland?

This time last year:
Scenes from West Ealing and Hanwell

This time two years ago:
Four years of PiS

This time five years ago:
High Victorian Manchester 

This time eightyears ago:
The clocks go back - but when should they go forward?

This time nine years ago:
Warsaw's first Metro line is completed

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..."

I'm Payin' Taxes, What Am I Buying*

Monday's Rzeczpospolita somewhat belatedly broke the news that of all the 55 countries surveyed by OECD, the rich economies' club, Poland is third from bottom when it comes to the efficiency of its tax system. The information comes from OECD's Tax Administration 2015 survey, published... in August. The fact that the news has only made it to the front page of Poland's newspaper of record is either testament to the fact a) that OECD's press office is not particularly effective or b) that Rzeczpospolita's journalists are slow in picking up stories or c) that it's coming up to election time.

Anyway... The point is this. According to the OECD report, in the UK it costs 73p to collect £100 of taxes. In Poland, it costs 1.60 złotys to collect 100 złotys of taxes. In other words, Her Majesty's Revenue and Customs is more than twice as effective  as Poland's Urząd Skarbowy. Of the 55 countries surveyed, only Japan and Saudi Arabia performed worse than Poland.

The reason is clear to all who pay taxes in Poland and have any dealings with the Polish tax authorities. There's far too many resources wasted on chasing small amounts of money - tax inspections of small businesses that end up costing tens of thousands of zlotys in staff time and letters and court costs etc - and the poor entrepreneur turned out to have diddled fiskus (intentionally or otherwise) to the tune of a few hundred zlotys.

Poland's tax regulations are opaque and they are interpreted differently in different tax offices across Poland. One may say - "Yes, that's a legitimate business cost", another may say "No - you are trying to fiddle the State - we'll see you behind bars for this you hochsztapler, you!"

As anyone who's faced a tax inspection in Poland (as I did back in 2001), it is a stressful time. You really don't know what the outcome will be. With the best will in the world - and with the best tax experts by your side - the decision is a coin-toss. All down to interpretation. No clarity. No website that will inform you.

[Incidentally - what's the current VAT registration threshold in the UK? Click here, then here then here and within three intuitive clicks you are finally here, and you know it's £82,000. Now try the same thing for Poland... Start here - and I challenge you to find the information. Go on! I challenge you! I clicked 19 times before giving up. Can you find out what the VAT registration threshold is in Poland in less than 19 clicks?]

In the UK, demonstrating a lack of ill-will, a desire to help and basic honesty, coming clean to HMRC saying - "I made a genuine mistake here, based on my misunderstanding of x", followed by the correct payment, will see you right. In Poland, the entrepreneur in this situation may find himself dragged through the tax tribunal, his business destroyed, his workers without jobs - and at the end of the day the supreme tax court says that he was in the clear all along.

HMRC employs 63,800 people - roughly one person per every 1,000 UK citizens. Poland's tax office employs 48,800 people - roughly one person per every 750 Polish citizens. We clearly need to be more tightly controlled because we can't be trusted.

This control costs money. More inspectors - so what do they do? They inspect. These inspections often cost more than they bring in, because there's less focus on the big picture, an inability to see the wood for the trees. And inspectors, being only human ("Ile trzeba dać, aby nie dać?") need to be monitored, and those monitors themselves need to be checked for clean hands.

But has been progress. Should anyone in Rzeczpospolita think that publishing this damning indictment of the PO government's lackadaisical approach to reforming the tax administration will damage their chances at the polls, may I point out that the one zloty sixty it currently costs to bring in 100 złotys of tax revenue compares rather well to the situation when PiS was last in government (1.94zł/100zł in 2005 and 1.76zł the following year).

Poland deserves a better functioning state. In many areas, the private sector has overtaken its peers in Western Europe when it comes to competitiveness and even productivity. But the dozy urzędy need to move with the times and implement best practice - if the UK, a more populous country, a bigger economy, can collect taxes twice as cheaply as Poland does - it means there are lessons that can be learned.

On the same day as Rzepa led with this story, it emerged that Facebook paid less tax in the UK than my nonagenarian father, on UK sales of £105m. Now, while the social media company has stayed within the letter of law, the ethics of shifting costs from one country to another with a lower corporate tax rate is deeply questionable. I for one will stop using or visiting Facebook until such time as the company pays the full whack of UK corporation tax on its UK sales. Shifting profits offshore as transfers to other subsidiaries within the same group to pay for 'management costs' or 'intellectual property' or 'trade mark use' is plain bullshit and should be stopped by governments. Tax rules drawn up for the industrial age need to be urgently revisited.

* A great tune by The JB's...



This time four years ago
One stop beyond

This time five years ago:
Who am I? (Kim ja jestem?)

This time six years ago:
First snow, 2009. Ghastly!

This time seven years ago:
Train links to town improving

This time eight years ago:
A beautiful Sunday, south of Warsaw

Poland's progress: international rankings season

It's that time of year again when nations are scrutinised and ranked according to parameters which determine where global business should locate its activities. Last week, the World Bank published its Doing Business ranking, in which Poland advanced once again (from 45th to 38th in terms of ease of doing business). And EF, a language training company, published its English Proficiency Index, which placed Poland as sixth best (!) in the non-native English-speaking world in terms of its population's mastery of the de facto global language. Poland is among the fastest-improving countries in the world when it comes to knowing English.

Today, Transparency International published its Corruption Perception Index, looking at how corruption is perceived across 175 countries around the world. For the ninth year in a row, Poland did better than the year before, albeit the pace of improvement has slowed down.

This is a clear wake-up call to Ms Kopacz's government not to take its eye off the ball. Although Poland is not slipping, the pace of improvement is far slower than in the first two years of the Tusk administration, when the leaps away from Millerite corruption were most noticeable. Whether you tend to be left-leaning or right-leaning (or, like me, seek balance), corruption is something we can all agree on needs to be extirpated with extreme prejudice.

Look at the graph below which puts Poland into the context of other former communist states. Poland has clearly distanced itself not only from the Balkans and the post-Soviet space, but also from the rest of Central and Eastern Europe. Only Estonia, a country that's more Scandinavian than Slavic ranks ahead of Poland. The distance between the UK and Poland (17 points and 21 positions) is smaller than between Poland and Romania (18 points and 34 positions). And this year Ukraine advanced (marginally) from its dire 2013 ranking, while Russia slipped back. Note the effect that EU membership has had on these countries. And note also the general connection between low corruption and high standards of living.

EU membership has brought huge benefits to Poland, not least in terms of the quality of its public administration, now able to share best practices across the member states, better and clearer (though still a long way off perfection) laws and regulations, and a lack of tolerance to corruption. Gone forever are the days when a well-stuffed envelope can buy you the necessary planning permit from the town hall, or a large banknote can let you off a drunk-driving charge.

Foreign investors are looking for transparency, stability and predictability; when investing with a 20- to 30-year timeframe, a government that grasps, wheedles and wobbles is not going to be a good place to build a factory, warehouse or shopping mall, no matter how cheap the labour or the land.

The quality of a country's institutions is paramount; effective, productive public administrators able to carry out their functions quickly and well is crucial to the citizens' well-being.

So a big thank-you to the World Bank, to the World Economic Forum, to Transparency International and to other institutions, NGOs and think-tanks that take the time to compare countries and rank them. Governments take notice, citizens take notice. Governments that fail to deliver improvements get democratically booted out.

This time last year:
The Transparency International Corruption Perception Index for 2013

Also this time last year:
Poland's rapid advance up the education league table: PISA 2013

This time two years ago:
Life expectancy across the EU: more comparisons

Your papers are in order, Panie Dembinski

Over the summer I finally got myself legitimate in the eyes of the Polish state. Principally, this meant a) obtaining a personal ID card (dowód osobisty), and then b) swapping my UK driving licence for a Polish one.

Now that Poland has been in the EU for ten years, I found the whole process very straightforward and simple. My UK-born colleagues who went through this in the past had to endure a Kafka-style maze of unpleasantness being sent from office to office and still not sorting things out. Today it's become easy, and the people serving the citizen are efficient and friendly. (In Ursynów at least; I can't judge for other urzędy.)

Day one. Go to the Urząd Dzielnicy Ursynów, get a numerek from the ticket machine, wait in short queue. Explain my situation to nice lady at counter no. 24, who tells me precisely what documents are needed. I return a few hours later with said documents, which she says are all fine; she photocopies them, gives me back the originals. I get a nice photo done at the photo studio at the end of the open-plan first floor, and pay some money - can't even remember now how much - to the cash office downstairs. Back at counter no. 24, we go through the application form together to ensure no mistakes. The lady says I'll get an SMS from the urząd when my dowód (below) is ready for collection.

One disappointment in the whole process - the Polish state still refuses to accept me as a Dembiński, insisting that my surname is 'Dembinski' because that's what it says on my birth certificate. I can change my surname from Dembinski to Dembiński by the Polish equivalent of deed poll, but why go through all that effort for one diacritic mark. If I'm going to change my name by deed poll it should be to something dramatic like Gromosław Ångstrom von Shöck-Therapy Jnr. And yet despite there being no 'ł' in my first name on my birth certificate, the Polish state now happily accepts me as 'Michał' rather than insisting on me being 'Michal'. So there we go - that's my official name, Michał Dembinski.

Day two occurs some two weeks later, after I get an SMS saying that I can come and collect my dowód. I go. It's there, I collect it after checking that there are no mistakes. Next I get another numerek and after another short wait I'm talking to a guy at counter no. 19 about swapping my UK driving licence (below) for a Polish one. I worry that officially, a sworn translation of my licence is needed as an attachment to my application. The friendly guy says that as it's in English rather than Flemish or Herzegovinian, there is no need. I fill in a form, he photocopies my licence; again I pay some small fee in the cash office downstairs, submit another one of the photos from my dowód photo session, and I'm done. Once again, I have to await an SMS.

In the meantime, my new dowód enables me to pick up my Karta Warszawiaka hologram to stick onto my ZTM travel pass. This proves I'm a tax-paying Warsaw resident, and entitled to a 35zł discount on a quarterly contract. I've done all the form-filling online a long time ago, having a dowód makes it far easier when it comes to proving who I am and where I live. After three minutes in the ZTM customer service office by Metro Centrum, I'm out again with a hologram affixed to my Karta Miejska (below).

Day three, some ten working days after applying, I get the SMS to say my Polish driving licence (below) is ready for collection. I go, check the details on it are all correct, sign for it and leave. As simple as that. My wallet is now noticeably slimmer now that I don't have to take my passport with me everywhere as proof of identity (which in Poland, unlike the UK, one has to carry around compulsorily). And with the new driving licence, a plastic card replaces a large sheet of paper folded three times and carried in a plastic cover.

Four visits over three days spanning less than a month, a total time of around two and half hours to sort it all out. Marvellous. Miraculous, almost, thinking back to my early days in Poland where every visit to an urząd tested one's patience to the utmost - being sent from office to office, being told that this paper's wrong or that some other paper's needed - an often-futile wild goose chase organised by deeply unpleasant and officious people who believed that the citizen's place was on their knees before them.

How times change. It's demographics and EU membership, training, exposure to Western best practice and an increased level of social trust that we can thank.

The whole process has further reinforced my view that Poland is becoming an ever-nicer country to live as the years roll by.

This time two years ago:
Topiary garden by the Vistula

This time three years ago:
Raymond's Treasure - a short story

Defending Poland, contributing to NATO

On a day when another unmarked, denied, convoy of armoured fighting vehicles entered eastern Ukraine from Russia, Poland's armed forces day parade had the effect of focusing the nation's mind on defence. The crowds were huge. There was no 'nutty element' selling pamphlets about conspiracy or waving banners insulting the government. This was mainstream Poland - numerous, strong. In communist days, mobilising the masses the attend May Day rallies was not easy. Today, Poles will willingly come together to commemorate significant historical events.

President Komorowski's speech (full text in Polish here) passed without any booing or negative comments. Indeed, I had not a single, minor policy quibble with with any word of the speech. After four years in office, he remains a popular and unifying head of state; I cannot see him losing the next presidential election.

I positioned myself around the half-way point of parade, on Pl. Na Rozdrożu, standing on the entrance to a pedestrian underpass to give me a slightly better vantage point. However, this meant missing out on seeing the best kit, the Leopard 2 A5s recently acquired by the Polish Army, and the Krab self-propelled howitzer. Also in the parade were detachments of American and Canadian troops, currently stationed in Poland.

The last time I attended this event, back in 2007, I was stationed nearer the Belweder palace... but there was one drawback with such a location...

Some half an hour before the parade started, the drivers of the armoured fighting vehicles standing between Pl. Na Rozdrożu and Belweder were given the order to start their engines (above). Until they got going, the tanks and self-propelled guns were pumping out clouds of fumes. Not pleasant.

The equipment standing in front of me was smaller and cleaner; the vintage tanks (see previous post) didn't start their engines until the whole modern army parade had passed. When I say 'modern' I mean 'post-war'; the Polish armed forces currently still rely for around two-thirds of their hardware on Soviet-era kit. By 2020, the proportions should be other way around, but that requires spending many billions of euros on acquisition of modern, western-designed hardware.

In the meantime - this (below) is the Osa ('wasp') anti-aircraft system. In use since the early 1970s, it is considered out of date in terms of dealing with modern military aircrafts' electronic countermeasure systems.

A large number of HUMVEEs rolled by - Poland has over 250 of these multi-purpose soft-skinned vehicles. Modern asymmetric warfare has pushed them back from the front line, where mine and ambush resistant vehicles (MRAPS) are called for. The parade included desert-painted and green-painted examples.

Below: the Czechoslovakian-built DANA self-propelled 152mm howitzer dates back to 1977. Poland's army has 111 of these unusual vehicles - unusual in that it is wheeled rather than tracked.

The Langusta ('lobster', below) is essentially a modernised, Polish-built version of the Soviet Grad multiple rocket launcher, mounted on a Jelcz truck.

Another hybrid, the Rosomak ('wolverine') armoured personnel carrier (below). The hull is a licence-made Finnish Patria APC, adapted to suit Polish requirements and fitted with an Italian turret.

Below: how do you get a 60-tonne tank over a 20-metre-wide gap? The Daglesia ('Douglas-fir', below) provides the answer - this bridgelayer is said to be the most modern in the world. Also available on caterpillar tracks.

The crowds that watched the parade drift slowly away, satisfied that Poland has the will and the wherewithal to defend itself against the type of incursion that Ukraine is currently facing. Poland has two huge pluses - it is part of NATO and part of the European Union. Poland must pay its way - at least 2% of its GDP should be spent on defence. Not a grosz less.

This time two years ago:
Balloon over Warsaw

This time four years ago:
Happiness, Polish-style

This time five years ago:
And watch the river flow...

Nation building - my wishes for Poland in 2014

I've long wanted Poland to be a pleasant place to live, a normal country, Scandinavianly boring, prosperous, without islands of glaring poverty, without ignorance or hatred. And to my delight, it's moving in that direction, albeit at a slow pace. To be able to find Poland's place in the world. one really needs to compare a wide selection of indicators across many countries - from wealth to health to happiness - and track these over time. In general, Poland is getting better, in many international rankings. But there's still lots more to do, a long way to travel before Poland can be as great a place as say Norway or Denmark to live.

So then, my fellow nation-builders - what do we need?

• A Plain Polish campaign. Polish government authorities - and private companies (in particular the utilities) should communicate with citizens and customers clearly. No more gobbledegook! No more sentences of 100 or more words! No more irrelevant references to the chapter and verse of the law! It really is high time that Polish bureaucrats appreciated that it is their responsibility to write clearly - not the citizen's responsibility to attempt to understand their convoluted texts.


• Safer roads. As I write, another BMW (why is it always BMWs?) driven by a drunken driver, ploughed into a group of people at a level crossing, killing six. Dangerous driving results in mass slaughter, several thousand Poles are killed needlessly by idiot drivers, and it occurs to few to SLOW DOWN. 50kmh means 50kmh, not 85. As I pointed out this time last year, more than six times as many Poles have been killed in road-accidents in modern Poland than were killed by Stalin at Katyń. Road safety must become a top priority for government. The cost of keeping several thousand people alive each year is minimal.


• Polish universities need a shake-up. There are still way too many old-era professors blocking the advance of younger academics, who are multilingual, who have experience living and working abroad, who have a vision of how things can be. Poland's poor standing in research and development, in collaboration between business and academia, in creating science parks that can turn the fruits of academic study into profitable products or services, is mainly down to the heavy blanket of blinkered profs in their 60s and 70s. Time for them to shuffle off.


• More civil society. By which I mean charities, volunteering, more public-spirited behaviour. No, putting a few zlotys into a collecting-tin for Wielka Orkiestra Świątecznej Pomocy once a year and allowing the government to give 1% of the tax it's taking from you to the charity of your choice is not enough. If Poland is to catch up in terms of the individual's attitude towards society, we need to move towards an understanding that we're all in it together, for one another's benefit. This message needs to be appreciated by every individual, not forced into them as communist-style collectivism was.
  
• Let's be nicer to one another. Let's stop treating shop staff, security guys and office cleaners with cold disdain, bury that supercilious arrogance that comes with being financially better-off. We're all here together, so we should try to get along, with a smile, a dzień dobry, a dziękuję, a do widzenia as we go through our day.


• A focus on economic sustainability. As Poland becomes more wealthy, there is the opportunity to stop obsessing about short-term gain and start looking ahead with a more long-term perspective. The economy is likely to accelerate this year - may the owners of the businesses that are making this happen also think long-term about their companies' competitiveness, investing in R&D, in new technologies, in their employees, in growth, in sustainability, in making their companies more resilient to external shocks. Government needs to cut borrowing, spend less on current costs (a smaller bureaucracy please, and invest more in capital projects to enhance the nation's infrastructure.

Less intolerance, less selfishness, less sense of entitlement, more kindness, more patience, more self-reliance and responsibility. In the next ten years, Poland really can become a much, much better place to live than it is today - which is a whole lot better than it was in 2004 or in 1989...

This time last year:
LOT's second Dreamliner over Jeziorki
(before the batteries started catching fire)

This time two years ag0:
New Year's coal train

This time six years ago:
Winter train

Heritage building or high-rise?

Let's take a look at the heart of Warsaw's Central Business District. Here's ul. Emilii Plater (below), looking north towards the Cosmopolitan building under construction at the north end. In the foreground, the Intercontinental Hotel, with its characteristic cut-out that lets sunlight through to the flats behind it. Further on down the road, the Warsaw Financial Center. To the left, Rondo ONZ 1.

In between all this high-risery, we have a two-story, state-owned furniture shop, Emilia. Well, 'state-owned' for the time being, for the Ministry for the State Treasury is selling it off. The Capital City Enterprise for Internal Commerce 'Furniture Emilia' (Stołeczne Przedsiębiorstwo Handlu Wewnętrznego 'Meble Emilia') is finally being privatised after nearly 23 years of market democracy (can you imagine a chain of stores called the 'Capital Furniture Enterprise' owned by the British state and competing with Ikea and MFI?). The store itself has shut down and moved on, but the building is currently and temporarily housing the Museum of Modern Art (Muzeum Sztuki Nowoczesnej).

So here it is in close-up (below). There is a buyer - Griffin Investments, which has agreed to pay the Polish state treasury 115m zlotys, nearly £60m, for 11 Emilia stores with over 11,000 square metres of showroom space. Of course, what Griffin is really buying is this prime site on Emilii Plater.

Except there's one tiny problem. While the state treasury was auctioning off its chain of furniture shops, Warsaw's heritage buildings conservator had the given the Emilia store listed building status. And failed to inform its owner, the Ministry of the State Treasury. Who then sold it onto an investor, who was under the impression that Emilia could be knocked down and replaced with another 40+ story skyscraper.

It's things like this that give Poland a bad name when it comes to attracting foreign investment. One public sector body not informing another one of something as fundamental as listing a building that's up for sale. This is another scandalous example of a dysfunctional public sector that hampers foreign investment and costs Polish jobs as a result. A point I made in the Polish parliament today (at a meeting of the Polish-British Parliamentary Group).

Now, as to the actual Emilia building itself, I have a soft spot for it (see here and here), but what I'd really like to see is Stalin's Gift to the Polish People's Republic (right) ringed by a circle of high-rise buildings.

Don't demolish it, but reduce its significance to Warsaw's skyline. Replacing Emilia with another tower would help.

What's likely to happen, however, is another five-year stalemate in the Polish court system, angry investors, a bad press for Poland and a missed opportunity. I hope I'm wrong.

Today, Warsaw enjoyed temperatures topping 24C. Gloriously blue skies, warmth continuing into the late evening. (Just thought you'd like to know that, UK readers!)

This time last year:
Shopping notes

This time two years ago:
My grandfather

This time four years ago:
Surreal twilight, ul.Karczunkowska

This time five years ago:
From Warsaw to Seville, via Munich and Madrid