Politoblog

When I worked in a retirement home last year, I got to know a carer who was a lawyer back home in Romania. In Britain, she worked 12-hour days, six days a week, and spent her day off learning English. She did this to support her children at home. Romanians say "Nu mușca mâna care te hrănește" - don't bite the hand that feeds you. As Britain ends freedom of movement between the UK and the EU, we would do well to remember our reliance on the 3.6 million EU migrants in the UK. Several months ago, the British government announced it would be ending freedom of movement between the UK and the EU and implementing a new points-based immigration system. Under this system, distinctions will be made between "skilled" and "unskilled" workers. Carers aren't considered "skilled" - most care jobs don't even pay enough to reach the immigration income threshold of £25,600 - ironic given the amount of training required to work in care. We recently lear...

Confucius said that "symbols rule the world." I'm afraid I have to agree. The Finnish air force has recently revamped its logo, removing the swastika that has featured on it since 1918. The swastika found its way onto the air force logo thanks to Swedish Count Eric von Rosen, who used the swastika as a personal good luck charm (swastika means “well-being” in Sanskrit). If the Swastika had no Nazi connotations when it was adopted by the Finns in 1918, Eric von Rosen did subsequently become a personal friend of Hitler, something which the Finnish air force is concerned may affect young Finns’ attitudes towards the military. There are also fears that the swastika symbol might antagonize their Russian neighbours, or deter support from Finland’s western allies. Finland was able to use the swastika symbol for so long, despite the fact that in the West it is now synonymous with Nazism, and has even been banned in Germany, because it is a symbol that dates back thousands of years...

As far as dictators go, the leaders of the Eastern Bloc always tried to appear democratic. What most people would consider as one-party rule and centralised power was known in Soviet Russia as “democratic centralism”. Russia and the former Eastern Bloc played the democracy game – article 134 of the 1936 constitution proclaimed elections by “on the basis of universal, direct and equal suffrage by secret ballot”, whether this happened or not. Even when the USSR invaded Czechoslovakia in 1968, they Russians didn’t remove “progressive” President Dubček from power, as this would delegitimise the regime. Instead, they allowed him to lose credibility all by himself, so that a Russian puppet could then be installed in the country. When it comes to Central and Eastern Europe today, it is unsurprising that many of these countries are following in this tradition. Many of the countries formerly behind the Iron Curtain never fully managed to democratise. Witold Szabłowski's book "Dancing B...