Concrete Achievements

Tag: poland

  • Links from the week of 8 August 2022

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • We’re changing things around at @demsoc.

    We’re changing things around at @demsoc. I’m stepping down as Director General in October to focus on my role as President. A new DG will run the organisation, while I focus on strategy, networks and our governance as chair of our Council.

    After 12 years of running the organisation day to day, it’s definitely time for a change – and absolutely no one will be surprised to hear that the “ideas bit” is closer to my heart than Excel spreadsheets.

    We’ll shortly be starting an open recruitment for the new DG so if you have what it takes to help us grow and mature to the next level, get polishing your CV.

    Between now and October we’ll be reshuffling a bit to line us up behind our theory of change (demsoc.org/theory-of-chan…) and ensure that the new DG has a strong organisation to take on.

    Finally, though I will still be very much around after October, it’s a moment to thank the whole Demsoc team for helping us get to a place where we can make this first big transition. And <3 to @dzyrl for bearing with my crazy dream(s) for the last 12 years.

  • C’est fini pour le PS alors.

    C’est fini pour le PS alors. Ces arguments sont exactement les mêmes que les Britanniques en Irlande du nord, Orban ou Kaczynski. Céder le respect des lois pour quelques conscriptions. Vraiment, c’est honteux. twitter.com/PierreLepel/st…

    « Désobéir la loi internationale dans un rayon spécifique et limité » – ces sont les mots du ministère Britannique en essayant d’éviter les conséquences du TCA en Irlande. Et que dirait un MAÉ socialiste en réponse? « Ah ouais c’est pas mal comme idée ça »?

    J’en ai marre avec les politicos français qui prétendent que l’Europe est un grand méchant ogre que la France ne peut jamais influencer. Qu’ils aillent voter pour Le Pen et son Frexit!

  • Good article by ⁦@stefanauer_hku⁩ ⁦@pbergsen⁩ and ⁦@hanskundnani⁩.

    Good article by ⁦@stefanauer_hku⁩ ⁦@pbergsen⁩ and ⁦@hanskundnani⁩. Agreed that the political (and, I would add, democratic) path to further integration is the only one. chathamhouse.org/2021/10/law-to…

    Which is not to say that the Polish constitutional court is in the right, far from it. But Europe is now dealing in too many political and personal issues to use a fundamentally economic-regulatory mode for integration.

    It’s a mark of the success of the European project but « what got you here won’t get you there »

  • I’m glad to be part of that living bridge, but would quite like it if the maniac…

    I’m glad to be part of that living bridge, but would quite like it if the maniac populists at either end could stop blowing up the supporting structures. twitter.com/JnbraithwaiteU…

    Seriously, though, it’s exactly these ties of history, blood and family between Poland and the UK, and between both countries and the rest of Europe, that Brexit and the current Polish government undermining of the rule of law have betrayed.

    Brexit forced a choice between British and European, the dire consequences of which are playing out where that mattered most, in Northern Ireland. The Polish government appear to be pretending there’s a choice between Polish and socially liberal.

    Those pretended choices are false and are made with the explicit intention of dividing people and stoking conflict – for the benefit of populist political elites who despise their voters far more than the mainstream parties ever could.

  • Links from the week of 2 August 2021

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Links from the week of 19 April 2021

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • Links from the week of 5 April 2021

    Articles, reports and other links I shared on Twitter this week.

  • All Europeans now know that DeKalb County exists, AND that it’s pronounced de-cab, so why…

    All Europeans now know that DeKalb County exists, AND that it’s pronounced de-cab, so why don’t they know as much about European politics as they do about American? Because we have a better electoral system.

    Of course, the US is big, and important, and the elections are huge news events – BUT part of the problem with American elections is that first past the post (winner takes all) elections create lots of narrow finishes and high drama – at the cost of millions of wasted votes.

    The reason that we know about @ItsInDeKalb is that the US electoral system makes swing counties in swing states hugely important. I guarantee that you will never hear @TehamaCountyED get the same focus – because it’s in California.

    But in the same way you will never hear about Łomża county (pronounced WOM-zha) holding the balance of power in the European Parliament – because it never will. Proportional representation means that a few votes in Łomża don’t turn the scale more than a few votes in Warsaw.

    That’s bad for the tourism service of @umlomza, but good for European governance, and for European voters. Quick, proportional elections mean votes count more equally. They make for good politics, but bad political theatre (and no days of sitting in front of Euronews).

  • This is a good article but it’s not “squeaky bum time” or any other matey football…

    This is a good article but it’s not “squeaky bum time” or any other matey football metaphor. It is a serious supply chain crisis that is the deliberate consequence of the Government’s choices, and which voters in the referendum were told would not happen. twitter.com/Joe_Mayes/stat…

    The fact that the Government was elected and its leading members won a referendum makes it worse not better because the prospectus they sold was clearly false. The next few months are an accountability moment – and the UK political/media system needs to step up to it.

    As we’re seeing in the US, Hungary and Poland, political systems are not broken by individual actions, they are broken when systems don’t defend themselves by delivering accountability for damaging actions.