Having just arrived home late last night from a trip to Poland for the wedding of a colleague of my wife the last thing on my mind has been to let my remaining brain cells put together a few hundred words here as I`ve been doing for eleven years. But some difficult opinions are trying to escape.
The nuptial venue was the town of Znin situated half way between Warsaw and Berlin. The hotel was converted from a late 19th century and laterally a Soviet era sugar beet factory where all forms of large machines have been left in situ. Politically the town has been considered as part of Prussia, Poland and USSR. It was destroyed exactly 85 years ago by the Nazi invasion and occupation when hundreds of its citizens were murdered. It seems that many workers and (Polish) guests were still existing in the Soviet era. The facilities seemed to open and close at a whim and nobody wanted to take responsibility when any queries arose. There were no TV programmes available in anything but Polish language, no newspapers, one only internal sign in English, not even that in German and most of the staff were monolingual. Poznan airport seemed to have been designed with Polish citizens only in mind. And now to my overlapping brain cells making a connection with the aforementioned to the experience on returning to Luton Airport.
Restoring my phones`s link with the outside world on landing there was a message that my son`s car had developed a battery problem and he would be unable to be there for pick up. And so began the revelation that those functionaries in HI VIS jackets whose sole task for which I presume they are adequately rewarded is to answer the questions of travellers on arriving at perhaps a new destination with some degree of knowledge. Speaking to the person at the onward travel area wrong information on costs of coach, train [and availability] taxis, Uber were offered. At the coach stop waiting area the only four seats were occupied and, still in recovery from major surgery, the thought of standing unsupported for 40 minutes until the coach arrived was not a solution. Further HI VIS advice was to take a coach to a train. We were further taken on advice to the wrong train station. There we were directed to the wrong platform for a train to Kings Cross. Just in time we were then told to change platforms as the service to Three Bridges was approaching. Where in god`s name is Three Bridges? Oh! that`s somewhere near Gatwick. My point to another yellow jacketed person presumably an employee of Network Rail was why did the indicator board not specify that Kings Cross, AKA St Pancras International, was a stop en route to somewhere miles south of the Thames.
My opinion of Poles and Poland bearing in mind current events and the recent upheavals in that country over the last decade lead me to believe that there is a national insularity within the psyche of those responsible for the running of the state and those who are living in their own European crossroad where East and West have contested their homeland for centuries.
And where is Britain on the spectrum of calm cool people ruled by calm cool government with workers of all sorts striving to do their best for those who pay them and for those they service? Identity politics {Corbyn led} inspired in part by foreign machinations fanning flames of antisemitism which is of course denied by the fanners insofar as it`s "Zionists" who are the evil doers, is now beginning to establish a forum to further ruin any idea of Britishness begun by the SNP and its Welsh counterpart. The democratic Right of the Conservatives having apparently lost its ideological battle has flitted to what might be an embryonic fascist party in the making. Our justice system, a pillar on which our supposed democracy rests, has been demonstrated to be as fragile as the egos of those who sit in SW1. A new Prime Minister who has pitifully demonstrated that all he learned at the Ministry of Justice is as naught when the judicial system must be an adjunct to this government`s version of its predecessor`s in its actions on public disorder ["crime"] and its deterrence.
All the above is alive and kicking in Poland. It is not inevitable that this country can escape the machinations and upheavals of Europe which over the centuries have led to ruin and sometimes resurrection for so many. We were then united in being what we are; proud to be British and able to reject the stirrings of authoritarianism. In 1656 Jews were allowed to settle in Britain, Britain was the first nation to abolish slave trading in 1807 and in 1918 the Parliament (Qualification of Women) Act 1918 was passed, allowing women to be elected to Parliament although full suffrage was delayed until a decade later. Post 1945 and the end of empire were the forces the ripples of which are still having their effects on how we live today. The immigration of black people from the West Indies and african former colonies has generally been a social and industrial success. The import of those whose first consideration is their adherence to a war conqueror and his visions of the 7th century has been anything but enhancement to a united society.
We are where we are and have naught to blame but ourselves. The Roman and other ancient empires went out more with a whimper than a bang. Are our ears sensitive enough as a nation to steer us in the right direction that our children and their children will have a home known as UK?
