The hawky eye of Your Man in Gdansk restlessly probes the murky undergrowth of Polish Politics to bring you the latest in scandals:

A juror in some dancing show, is up on charges of bribe taking in connection with the upcoming privatisation of a publishing house.

The Central Anti-Corruption Bureau tried unsuccessfully to entrap former president Kwaśniewski and his wife.

The head of the Central Anti-Corruption Bureau, Mariusz Kamiński, is in trouble over allegations of politically motivated entrapment (see above – although this has been known for years).

PO (the ruling party) politician Zbigniew Chlebowski is in trouble over his efforts to remove from a bill a paragraph that would damage the interests of the gambling industry. He was recorded saying words to the effect that “Miro” and “Grześ” were on-side. Sadly, memory has failed the sweating Chlebowski and he does not know who he could have meant by “Miro” and “Grześ,” though there are some suspicious souls who think “Miro” might be Mirosław Drzewiecki, minister for sport, who came on-side around June this year, and “Grześ” might be Grzegorz Schetyna, deputy minister for internal affairs and administration. Some even think the minister for sport should resign!

Oops! The last “scandal” slipped in there by accident. The wheeling and dealing between the gambling industry and the politicians was business as usual. There is no hint of corruption. PO, an openly – indeed proudly – pro-business political party, was simply persuaded by a branch of business to adopt a certain policy. That that policy will/would deprive the exchequer of something like 400 million zloties a year is irrelevant. Until a personal payment to one the three politicians is traced, there’s nothing to shout about. (The gambling industry companies in question already, of course, made perfectly legal donations to PO as a whole.)