Jason Kitcat

After having read “For Your Freedom and Ours” I'm passionate about righting the fairly comprehensive ignorance there is concerning the huge parts the Polish air force, army, navy and incredible resistance (the Home Army) played in the second world war.

I've been sitting on these links for a while… I stumbled upon them whilst looking up something about e-voting but I'm pleased to see two excellent speeches by John Prescott concerning the Polish. I doubt he wrote them but still…

More people outside Poland should know how much you contributed to the fight against Fascism.

And today I want to remember my own, personal debt of honour to a man called Paul, a Polish refugee who lived with my family during the War.

He fled from the Nazi occupation, and fought with the Allies for the freedom of Poland and the freedom of Britain.

I hope that today we have finally begun to properly record the contribution of thousands of people like Paul, who made such a huge impact on the Allied war effort.

Today, we pay tribute to the remarkable bravery of the citizens of Poland whose spirit was never broken.

The speeches can be found here and here

I couldn't agree more with this EUObserver comment piece, there are just too many reasons that neither the EU or Turkey are ready for full Turkish membership.

I'm just about to put Bill Clinton's “My Life” away on the bookshelf and there's two quotes I thought might interest readers. I enjoyed the book much more than I anticipated, particularly given some of the reviews, but pretty much end to end I was fascinated by the man's journey.

I had… a fascinating visit with Dole… [his opponent during his second election to Presidency]. He came to see me with a little toy for our cat, Socks, which he said was from his dog. We discussed the election, foreign policy and budget negotiations. The press was still buzzing about campaign finance abuses. Besides the [Democratic National Committee], the Republican National Committee and the Dole campaign had committed some violations. I had been criticised for inviting supporters to spend the night at the White House and for hosting morning coffees with administration members, supporters, contributors, and others who had no political ties to us.

I asked Dole, based on his years of experience, whether politics and politicians were more or less honest than they had been thirty years earlier. “Oh, it's not close,” he said. “Much more honest today.” Then I asked, “Would you agree that people think things are less honest?” “Sure,” he said, “but they're wrong about it.”

I don't know how that stands up given the current Republican hoo-ha over funding.

The second quote concerns George W Bush. The whole book is very interesting on the Bushes, Clinton genuinely seems to like Bush Sr but he hated the result in 2000 and hated even more the way it happened. Still he acknowledges George W has some political talents but can't help to put the knife in here., albeit indirectly…

The next day President-elect Bush came to the White House… We talked about the campaign, White House operations, and national security. He was putting together an experienced team from past Republican administrations who believed that the biggest security issues were the need for national missile defense and Iraq. I told him that based on the last eight years, I thought the biggest security problems, in order, would be Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda; the absence of peace in the Middle East; the standoff between nuclear power India and Pakistan, and the ties of the Pakistanis to the Taliban and al Qaeda; North Korea; and then Iraq. I said that my biggest disappointment was not getting bin Laden…

He listened to what I had to say without much comment, then changed the subject to how I did the job.

then John Simpson's latest column will change your mind

I was just saying to my wife the other day that it's when the older generation become activist that middle England often takes notice. I'd had a long chat with a refreshing lady who felt very strongly about privacy, ID cards and so on. When young protesters cause a fuss somehow they are more easily written off. But when some grey hairs stand up, you know they're fuming and they're not doing it just to cause trouble.

Cue today's story 73 year old Sylvia Hardy has been jailed for refusing to pay part of her exorbitant council tax. See the Guardian's story for more.

I think people wouldn't mind (so much) the high and every growing council tax they have to pay if they felt the money was well spent. But local democracy is pretty much broken, in England at least. I've been inspired by small towns in Canada and France where mayors and councillors have taken real care in protecting and nurturing their communities.

This isn't to say that English councillors don't care – I know the Green councillors in Brighton care very much – it's just that they are virtually powerless. One you factor in statutory targets and arcane funding formulas the limited powers are reducing to barely nothing. Additionally when councils can't afford to enforce their own authority, due to exorbitant legal fees, firms know they can operate with impunity.

What more, most councillors are paid an absolute pittance and with taxes as they are who can blame them for avoiding giving themselves a raise to a decent salary level? But if we want our towns and cities to be properly run then as well as reforming their powers we need to create a professional class of local politician – and that needs living wages.