The tectonic plates of British politics have moved again and the 44 day British Prime Minister bites the dust. An extraordinary story of hubris and self-delusion, the crowning glory of the Brexit experiment. Apparently an election this time "within a week", just by Conservative MPs, which is sensible, but which may be illegal by current Conservative Party rules. Whoever gets chosen would be sensible to recognize the frailty of their electoral madate and suggest elections sooner, say the spring of 2023. Only problem then is that Albina and I will have no chance to vote as we stay on our cruise. I am sure there will be a play, and soon a film, about this remarkable story. Liz Truss and Kwasi Kwarteng will never live down their role in causing the implosion of the British economy and the Conservative party until the end of their days. Her two teenage daughters must have taken this very badly, with their classmates mocking them as their mum is humiliated. They'll probably disown their mum. The final straw was the punch up in the voting lobby yesterday while the Tories couldn't agree whether the fracking vote was a vote of confidence or not. Tory whips were running backwards and forwards around the voting lobby shouting "I just don't give a fuck any more." Labour currently could win on such a landslide that I would be concerned how they will retain political stability amidst the economic hardships to come, as the choices will be very difficult, even for them.
Looking at possible successors, the ablest would be Rishi Sunak, but he will not unite the party. He is still seen as the regicide who got rid off Boris Johnson. Chancellor Hunt has ruled himself out as he continues his nasty role as high priest of austerity. Ben Wallace has ruled himself out before, and he is doing well with his Ukrainian war at the Defence department. Penny Mordaunt could theoretically unite Tories, but it would be a short term charming illusion before she collapses, as she is an intellectual and political lightweight. I still resent her ultimate lie during the referendum campaign when she threatened Britain with the arrival of countless millions of Turks. That lie was as fundamental to the Brexit campaign victory as the amount of money that could ostensibly be saved for the NHS, except that it was not repeated so often. The Tory Party membership will want the return of their feckless Johnson, but the Tory MPs surely won't allow that. Either way, each candidate has to have the backing of 100 MPs, so three candidates is the absolute max.
In the meantime, nasty Suella Braverman was forced to resign from the Home Office. Her successor is Grant Schapps, who has beeen in and out of the cabinet, and a woeful transport minister, until Truss sidelined him. He vowed earlier that Liz Truss did not have long as Prime Minister, but still accepted a cabinet post from her. He obviously knew her stay at no.10 was going to be brutal and short. The Federation of Poles in Gt Britain never got a reply from Braverman to that letter I composed about pre-settled status, during her 43 sdays in office. Perhaps we can get a reply from Schapps.
Despite all the preparations it is possible that the Scena-POSK agreement may still unravel. Zaneta Brudzinska from POSK sent round the "final " version of the agreement on Monday with the suggestion that it be signed by Helena and Magda by Thursday evening. However, I compared it with our proposed agreement and while the main items were there, including five free weeks in the theatre as well as rehearsals for two months in a dedicated room, and found 12 amendments, some of them actually in our favour. However, about six of them were not. There was imprecision for instance on storage space for Scena stage settings and above all only the possibility of working with the POSK technician for two days during final rehearsals. That last was impossible becaue a technician on accoustics and lighting needs to be available during the final rehearsals before the main performance. Also, under POSK health and safety rules, a responsible POSK employee should be on the stage all the time during rehearsals and the final performance. I checked with Magda but she wasn't able to attend on Thursday and so she paragraphed her support for the "final" vesrion on Wednesday and left it for Helena at the POSK reception desk.
On Helena send me a 12 inch long email, describing what she still object to. This morning I emailed her and pointed out that it would be better to have a contract signed before the POSK AGM on Saturday in case a future administration would not be so helpful. Nevertheless, I codified her long tale of woe and lamentation into six concrete proposed amendments and sent it to her for approval. There was no reply from her and I tried to contact her by phone. Still no reply. Finally she rang me at 3. She had had a long blissful sleep and asked what she should do about the contract. It transpired that she had not yet read my morning email. However, she read it as she talked to me and I urged her to send the amendments which I had set out to Zaneta and Chairman Laskiewicz in order to have the text amended. If they felt ready to do that she could come in on Friday evening to sign the amended version. True brinkmanship, although Helena would not have seen it like that. Let us see what happens as the ball is in Marek Laskiewicz's court before he can boast on Saturday at the AGM that he has signed the deal with Scena.
However, I broke the news to Helena about my round the world trip and my being inaccessible to assist them in the first 6 months of 2023. She was devastated. Truly devastated. It was quite flattering, but I said that my wife wanted to spend more time with me and she said she understood.
Regina Wasiak Taylor, who chairs the Polish Writers Union Abroad, is also resisiting pressure about my being unavailable for comunity activities. She has connived to get me on a special committee to approve new members.That means reading a lot of books. Not for me, or at least not for long.
In the evening I travelled to POSK for the opening show of the beautifully titled Theatre of Dreams showing the designs and prints of my old school friend Andrzej Klimowski and his wife Danusia Schejbal. The presentaion fronted a new organization, a sort of virtual Anglo-Polish museum called Anglo/Polish Cultural Exchenge, which features biographies of prominent Poles in the UK like Joseph Conrad, Andrzej Panufnik and Krystyna Skarbek. Its joint patrons were POSK, the Ognisko club in Kensington and the Polish Culture Institute attached to the Polish Embassy. A fascinating project with a good media fanfare. We will see if it works.
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