From Friday’s Rzeczpospolita, a national daily paper in Poland: A front page article by Marcin Czeka?ski about the detrimental effects of the government’s disarray. It seems that many key posts have not been filled yet. There is no treasury minister, for example. And then this gem:

“Privatisation is limping. PiS [the near-winners of the elections] has not sold a single firm of any size. Even though the privatisation plans of the previous government are still binding, they [the current government] are not carrying them out.”

It would appear to go without saying – literally without saying – that privatisation is a good thing (the article is clearly about the bad effects of the current situation). Privatisation is not presented here (a long way from the opinion section) as an economic policy with merits and demerits. It may indeed be a wise policy for Poland to follow but is that not a judgement one must make and defend with – oh, I don’t know – “facts”, “evidence”? You could argue that the absence of a treasury minister should also be presented more neutrally, not as an unquestionably bad thing. You would be right. A rudderless Poland is not necessarily a bad thing when people like Giertych and Lepper are itching to take control.

And since when were governments bound by the decisions of previous governments? If that is the case why have elections to change governments?

Rzeczpospolita, however, is only trotting after Gazeta wyborcza, whose pompousness seems inversely proportional to its decline in intellectual standards. Here’s a typically arrogant headline from Monday the 23rd. The story concerns modern architecture:

Poles still fear contrast. In Poland there is still little modern architecture built into the historic fabric. Even moderately extravagant projects can cause a good deal of confusion – is it fear of the new or a dictatorship of conservationists?

The poor benighted people are “confused” by extravagant intrusions of concrete and glass into medieval streets. And what causes this? Well, the sub editor allows only two possibilities – fear and dictatorship.