Ranking Poland and Polish cities

Earlier this month, an organisation called Global AgeWatch published the first-ever ranking of countries by how well they look after their elderly citizens. A goodly and well-meaning initiative - rankings serve to nudge politicians, policy-makers and bureaucrats out of their complacency. But hang on - what's this? Poland's only 62nd out of 91 countries surveyed - and ten places behind Tajikistan? And 23 places behind Albania?

OK, Poland does not offer its senior citizens the comfort that Scandinavian countries can afford. In Poland to be old means to be poor. But to be ranked 26 places behind Sri Lanka? 

A slap in the face for Poland, Poles, Polishness and everything Poland stands for. In cases like this, the first thing to do is to reach for - methodology. How have these people at Global AgeWatch reached this (frankly) insulting conclusion?

It seems the reason is health. Poland comes 87th out of 91 for health. Spending several minutes poring over comparable countries, I see that at Global AgeWatch, someone has blundered. Countries ruled by despots (hello Belarus) come out worse and yet are ranked better than Poland. The hard indicators for life expectancy and healthy life expectancy are significantly worse across our eastern border (three years less in both cases). But the soft measure 'relative mental/psychological well-being', Belarus gets an 'n/a', while Poland gets a rather poor 60.4 (the percentage of Poles over the age of 50 who think that their life has meaning compared to the number of Poles aged between 35 and 49). And so, somehow, Belarus, lacking data, comes 80th out of 91 for health while Poland comes 87th.

Next year's Global AgeWatch will inevitably show that Poland is in 55th or 44th (or whatever) place in the ranking. And as such, it will be trumpeted by the Polish media that "Poland is the fastest-improving country in the world when it comes to living conditions for old people". Which will be just as silly as saying that Poland's an awful, third-world level country when it comes to living conditions for old people.

This is why global rankings should be examined very critically. Some, with a long track record, a lot of very bright people putting them together, are valid and credible (I'm thinking the World Bank's Doing Business, Transparency International's Corruption Perception Index). Others are dodgy and ideologically motivated (anything that ranks Serbia number one, for example).

Poles are particularly prickly when it comes to way the world sees Poland. Any ranking that shows Poland in a good (or improving) light is swiftly publicised. Any ranking that shows Poland in a poor light is considered to be methodologically suspect. In some cases that's true, in others - well, Poland does need to improve its performance in quite a few areas of governance. 

I'm writing this ahead of tomorrow's poll to depose Warsaw's mayor Hanna Gronkiewicz-Waltz. Marcin commented on my post that Mercer's global ranking of cities put Warsaw at number 84. And London at 38. Well guess which city I'd rather live in - from the point of view of ease of getting about, congestion, crime, green space - Warsaw by a long shot. 

I'm proud of Warsaw - the progress I've witnessed here over the past 16 years has been truly magnificent. According to EU stats, Warsaw's GDP per capita is higher than the UK's average.

*Update, December 2015: indeed Poland has shot up the next edition of this methodologically questionable ranking - from 62nd to 32nd place. That's one hell of an improvement in just two years! Poland has leapfrogged nine other EU members... a great time to have been old in Poland! Meanwhile, neighbouring Lithuania slips into 63rd place in the 2015 rankings... 

This time last year:

Warsaw, early autumn - a photo miscellany

This time two years ago:

The genius of Donald Tusk 

This time three years ago:

Eighteen die in minibus crash

My enemy's enemy is my... ?

The Przybył case gathers momentum. "Here's that gunshot again, viewers, in case you missed it last night. And again" - Bang! A day later, Col. Przybył's doing fine, conducting media interviews.

I watch with interest what would occur on Toyah's blog, the right-thinking antidote to what you're reading here (written by me, someone incapable of independent thought - brainwashed by years of reading Gazeta Wyborcza and watching TVN news. And growing up in the West.).

[To get my non-Polish readers up to speed on this story, here's the BBC report.]

Instead of lashing out at the System, the one that murdered President Lech Kaczyński, intriguingly, Toyah lashes out at... Artur Zawisza. Readers may associate him with the lighter moments of the PiS-LPR-Samoobrona government (2005-07). Zawisza will primarily be remembered as the politician who wanted to ban the wearing of mini-skirts alongside public highways. And this while his coalition partners from Samoobrona were busy offering jobs for sex.

What has Artur Zawisza done to offend Toyah? He's a splitter. SPLITTER! Along with Marek Jurek (Prawica Rzeczpospolitej), then Adam Bielan, Michał Kamiński, Paweł Poncyliusz and Joanna Kluzik-Rostowska (Polska jest Najważniejsza), and then Zbigniew Ziobro and Jacek Kurski (Solidarna Polska), Zawisza had the temerity to set up a rival right-wing party in opposition to PiS.

OK, Zawisza is a splitter - indeed proto-splitter, because he was one of the very first to break off from Chairman Jarosław Kaczyński. But what did he do to earn Toyah's opprobrium?

The key thing to remember as the Przybył case unfolds is that it is being presented by the media as the result of the conflict between the civilian and military prosecutor. Now, the civilian prosecutor-general, Andrzej Seremet, with whom the military prosecutor is at odds, was appointed by President Lech Kaczyński.

So... Seremet is our friend. Przybył and his boss Krzysztof Parulski, being at odds with him are... So whatever Przybył says is... ? Well? About Smoleńsk, about dodgy public procurement practices in the armed forces? About organised crime? True? Or an insane attempt to discredit Seremet, anointed by the martyred President?

This case will get curiouser and curiouser. Expect some fine conspiracy theories to emerge from all this!

Postscript, Wednesday 11 January: As predicted, we did not have to wait long. Read the comments of Jagoda B. Kidding on Toyah's post from today. Przybył did not shoot himself. (Something to do with the 9mm round in a NATO Parabellum)

This time last year:
Some thoughts upon the Nature of Warfare

This time two years ago:
Snow so deep it needs a plough

This time three years ago:
A fieldfare in midwinter

This time four years ago:
Kraków, a bit of winter sunshine

I understand... nothing

Just when I thought I had Poland well-understood, this happens. Now I'm utterly flummoxed.

Military prosecutor, Colonel Mikołaj Przybył, was holding a press conference about press leaks concerning information about the Smolensk air crash investigation, when he ushered out the media, saying he needed to air the room. There was a sound, which journalists took to be that of a camera crashing to the floor. They dashed in to find Col. Przybył lying on the floor. It looked like he'd taken his life...

Now TVN24 has just inferred that he shot himself through the cheek and he'll be out of hospital tomorrow. True? Or cover-up?

Hang on - a man with a gun and live ammunition is allowed to host a press conference? He was allowed to have a gun because there were threats to his family's life? This is getting weirder and weirder by the minute!

Grounds for conspiracy theorists (who've had a rather tough time over the past few months alleging that President Lech Kaczyński and 95 others were murdered, rather than being the victims of cock-up piled upon cock-up) have suddenly become fertile once more.

Gnash Dziennik has (as of this evening) nothing to say on the matter (lead story about TV Trwam not getting a digital licence).

Col. Przybyl has claimed that attempts were made to scare him - threats to his family, break-ins to his house, attacks on his car - by whom? To what end? "It's like Lenin said. Look for the person who will benefit. And, uh, you know, uh..."

I am the Walrus?

What's going on? Lot of ins, lot of outs, lot of what-have-yous. uh... Right now, I really don't know. I do know, however, that the conspiracy theories, having somewhat run out of steam (Russians filling the valley in front of the runway at Smolensk with helium etc) will resurface.

And with them the division between the "brainwashed" (brainwashed by Tusk, PO, Gazeta Wyborcza and TVN) and the "brainwashed" (brainwashed by Kaczyński, PiS, Gnash Dziennik and TV Trwam) get ever deeper.

This is going to be an interesting story.

I look forward to the regular battle of wits between the usual suspects...

This time last year:
Wetlands winter meltdown

This time two years ago:
Jeziorki rail scenes, winter

This time three years ago:
Winter drivetime, Jeziorki North

This time four years ago:
Disappearing winter

A rare PS: I notice a clear correlation between climate-change deniers and PiS supporters. Am I right?