The Christmas edition of Polish current affairs magazine Polityka contains a fairly typical look back on the year in photographs. Internationally, the year is sombre to say the least: New Orleans, the London bomb attacks, race riots in Sydney, the earthquake in Kashmir, violence in Iraq… There is no room for levity in the captions.

And then there are the events of the year in Poland. A picture of the Kaczyński twins (one the president of Poland, the other the chief of the ruling party) carries the ironic remark “Poland is again blazing new trails for democracy.” The caption under the picture of a rearing horse bearing a riot policeman breaking up a pro-gay equality demonstration ends with the weary words: “It appears that thinking in this matter has been banned too.” (Poland’s minister for the Interior and Administration, Ludwik Dorn, described the police actions as a “exemplary”.) A photograph of the prime minister, who is widely dismissed as the puppet of his party boss (Kaczyński), bears the legend “…he promises little and keeps his word.”

And so it goes: tragedy in the world at large; mere farce in Poland.